


A Divine Plan

by apocahipster



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cannon Divergence, M/M, PTSD, im using epilogue world n then ignoring everything which happens in them, post cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 18:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19090945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocahipster/pseuds/apocahipster
Summary: After meticulous searching Dave finds a way for Karkat to become God Tier, despite them having already won the game and currently residing on Earth C. With the condition of ascension being performing a heroic act, the two set about scheming Karkat’s rise to immortality.





	1. A new page of the rulebook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave learns something new about post-game life

             Incoming transmission…

             Time sent: unknown

             Location sent: unknown

             Time received 1:04 PM, Troll Kingdom Standard

             Subject matter: Game FAQ God Tier Rules

             Author: mrsXenaciousG

 

Dave’s heart skipped a beat. It was probably nothing worth getting worked up over, even the kind of worked up that he had no control over as he couldn’t exactly choose whether or not to withhold physical internal organ displays of excitement. So instead, he conceded to himself, that he was excited. Besides it was 1:04 PM and no one was awake to take him to task for experiencing an emotion over what would presumably turn out to be a tremendous waste of his time.

He was already beyond tired and just about to go to sleep when the transmission had come through. It could wait until morning he told himself as he opened the document. It probably wasn’t anything new he told himself, as he read the first page. The first page was just a detailed outline of what God Tiers were. Aspects and classes, divine roles set by the universe, yadda yadda he’d read it all before. Not just read it before, he’d read it over and over and over across the dozens of transmissions his computer has been wired to receive.

The computer was an impressive piece of technology, designed to pick up messages from mediums in other universes, outside of universes or from their own iterations of furthest rings. Such a device would seem improbable, almost impossible to exist, if not for it being crafted by the finest computer and mechanical minds this or any other universe had ever witnessed. Dave’s just privileged to have parents like that, no biggie.

The computer picked up messages from across time and space and on more than one occasion it had picked up Game FAQs written by miscellaneous Rose Lalondes from miscellaneous timelines and realities.

And Dave had read all of them, looking for a new piece of information, a specific piece of information. None of the FAQs had even alluded to it yet, but Dave refused to admit the truth; that this information most likely didn’t exist, as it was based on a desperate wish, that there was a way to ascend to God Tier after the game had ended and the ultimate reward had already been claimed.

By the second page of the FAQ, Dave’s vision went blurry and he leaned against his arm while he scrolled, skimming over descriptions of each aspect.

_Blood: kinship, creating, nurturing and strengthening familial bonds. A name and appearance deceptively violent. Of course, the class determines how the aspect is used. An active class and / or one situated around combat would use this aspect more violently. For instance a Knight of Blood would be someone inclined to fighting…_

Dave scoffed.

_…through the mobilisation of their bonds OR to protect those they are bonded to._

If Dave could unscoff, he would. As entertaining as this all was, his head sank further into his hand, and his eyes drooped heavier.

He began reading their description of time. Not a single one of these FAQs seemed to have been written by a time player, because they always got the intimate details wrong. They just didn’t understand time. Time’s about flow, rhythm. Maybe he should write his own FAQ section on time. Or better yet, a piece of poetry about time… no a rap about time.

             _Tick tock, I’m the keeper of time_

_Master of clocks, and gears and shit_

Fuck no that’s terrible, he thought as his eyes closed, just for a blink. And another. And another.

_Tickity tockity, flippity, cockity_

Yeah, that’s dope… his thoughts drifted.

His mouth opened slightly as he mimed the sounds

_Rhythm and rhyme its just about… time… to… clocks… n gears… n shit_

His head slipped from his hands and it jerked violently, first downwards, slamming into the keyboard, and then up again as he regained consciousness.

“Okay pal the only _time_ we’re gonna be thinking about now is that it’s _time_ to sleep,” he said to himself, rubbing his sore forehead and shutting down the computer. He slipped out of his bedroom and tiptoed through the living room where Karkat was curled up on the couch, sound asleep in front of the TV while the credits of a movie illuminated his face. Even in his sleep his face was creased, like he was always prepared to be pissed off at any given moment.

Dave filled a glass of water in the kitchen and quietly made his way back into to his bedroom shutting the door softly behind him. The ease at which he could sneak about without waking Karkat may be the just about the only benefit to come from his childhood ninja training.

The large computer was still whirring softly as its fans took a very long time to shut down. When the computer had first been introduced into his room, Dave had explained to Karkat that it had some serious music mixing technology which was why it had to be so damn huge. Karkat had accepted this lie at face value. Until a breakthrough discovery was made Dave refused to tell Karkat the actual purpose of the computer. It was for his own good to be in ignorance for now.

Dave finally collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep to the sound of the computer shutting down, trying to not think of it as some poetic metaphor for his hope slowly creeping to a standstill.

 

 

Karkat woke up on the couch at some indeterminant time. Despite his body being cramped all over and all of his muscles hurting from not sleeping in a recooperacoon, he couldn’t deny that was, as Jake English would describe, one banger of a nap. He stretched, listening to a chorus of joints popping. He flexed his fingers and couldn’t help but notice that his skin felt a little stiff. It was still too soon after waking to be filled with the anxiety of aging. Not particularly a fear of growing old, but an apprehension towards the next, and basically final major stage of his physical development.

He rolled off the couch and onto the floor, and then grabbed blankets to wrap around his shoulders before he stood and headed into the kitchen. His and Dave’s shared hive was in the troll kingdom, but it was a space which reflected a hybrid of two different species living together. Dave’s imported human food was found throughout the kitchen, and as Karkat turned on the lights they glared extra bright, designed to help with humans’ lack of night vision.

Outside it was dark, a good sign that he had woken at least in vaguely the right proximity of when one should be awake. Their lifestyle wasn’t exactly healthy, they both basically lazed around the house, sleeping whenever, waking whenever. It was taking a bit of a toll on Karkat, but he was more concerned about Dave. He’d read somewhere once that humans need to move their bodies a lot to keep them healthy. Something to do with a hunter-gather biological heritage? He didn’t really understand it, but he had assumed Dave had known how to take care of himself. Now he was not so sure about that.

Karkat ate breakfast on the couch, and hours passed, and he watched several episodes of a sit com, and hours passed, and he took a shower and hours passed and it was only an hour until sunrise when Dave finally emerged from his room.

“Sup,” Dave said as he headed for the kitchen.

“Hey, you wanna watch a movie?” Karkat asked, about to put something new on.

“Uh sure let me get something to eat first though I just woke up.”

“Do you know what time it is- wait forget I asked, you literally always know.”

Dave winked under his shades, uncertain if Karkat would be able to tell or not. He liked to think they’d lived together long enough that a bro could tell when another bro was winking at him, regardless of a pair of sunglasses.

“You should maybe work on fixing your sleep schedule, and uh doing some uh, exercise sports,” Karkat said.

Dave froze on his way to the kitchen. “Wait holy hell do trolls not have sports?”

“If you ever left this hive you would know that. Of course we have sports… or we did. Well… it was mostly a show for the highbloods. Lowbloods would use their psychic abilities to hit balls around and get culled if they were bad at it, or even if they were good at it really. I’m not sure what they play now days.”

Dave put his hands on his hips and in a high-pitched whingy voice said, “ _If you ever left this hive you’d know that.”_

“Yeah okay I’m a fucking hypocrite everyone with half a brain already knows this. But maybe you should… maybe _we_ should get out more. I think two sweeps has been sufficient time to catch up on the years of sleep the game ripped from us.”

Dave fell silent and somewhat still. The game was always a strange subject to broach. Some days it was part of everyday conversation riff in the godly group chat. Other days it was a deep dive into shared yet deeply personal trauma. Karkat could instantly tell that the game was the subject to press in order to understand Dave’s wellbeing. “Maybe being locked up here is making you think too much about it. Have you been… dwelling on it?”

Dave reflected on the past several months he had spent reading useless game FAQs. “Uh a little. I’m fine though. I mean, I’d never admit it but fresh air is probably a good idea. Like leaving the house sounds fun. But I’m not like in a bad shape or anything. What about you, how are you doing? I don’t like want you to be staying inside all day being all antisocial just because I’m doing that.”

“Uh no my thing is more… uh… Okay this is going to sound weird but maybe we can not make fun of each other for two fucking seconds as I ask this?”

“Okay shoot,” Dave said.

“Do you… have any more… developmental changes to go through? Like physically?”

“Dude,” Dave’s eyebrows creased. “I’m twenty so no.”

“Oh. Well I uh, got one more and I think it’s coming up. In a few months or so,” Karkat said. He flexed his fingers, knowing Dave would have no idea the action was related to the conversation. When he squeezed his eyes shut, his face took too long to crease. It was only a matter of time before Dave touched him and noticed the difference. Or maybe the hardening process was gradual enough that Dave wouldn’t notice at all.

Dave went into the kitchen and came back three minutes later, sat down on the couch beside Karkat and ate some toast. He took a slow loud bite and crunched it for a moment. “Oh shit I was wrong yeah there is one thing,” he said. “Wisdom teeth.”

“What the fuck are wisdom teeth?”

“They’re just teeth humans get right at the back of their mouth and they come way later than other teeth and most humans get them removed because they’re too big. To be honest I’m a little scared because they can hurt and getting them removed is meant to hurt and I don’t know what human dentists are like here so… it’s just stupid like I’ve gone this long with the teeth I have I really don’t need any more.”

“I uh, think trolls have significantly more teeth than humans do.” A surge of excitement filled Karkat. “Oh this will freak you out, did you know trolls can lose their teeth and regrow them.”

“Humans can do that too but only once. Like these big teeth go, yo it’s time to grow the fuck up, and like come out from underneath your little teeth and just sorta, push those fuckers out the way. And then you’re meant to take care of these ones cause these are your forever teeth not just the teeth you get for Christmas.”

“I can’t believe we have _that_ in common. I was so ready for that to freak you out.”

“Oh yeah loosing teeth is weird as shit. We even have this dumb tradition where you put the tooth under your pillow and a magical fairy is meant to come and exchange it for a dollar but magic isn’t real so instead it’s just your human lusus and they keep all your teeth in a box. Man… that is really fucking weird now that I think about it. I wonder if there’s just a box of my teeth in Bro’s room or something?”

“Why do all of our conversations always turn out this terrible, can we stop talking forever and watch a movie?”

“Sure, what was it you wanted to watch?”

“ _In which troll Adam Sandler is a veterinarian at-”_

“Just put on the film.”

 

 

 Kanaya wandered deeper and deeper into the cave. Her skin illuminated the walls as she passed, her unique condition finally fulfilling its original purpose of lighting up a brooding cavern as she held the Matriorb securely in her arms. She had been down here many times, double, triple, quadruple checking that the cave’s conditions were absolutely perfect for her species’ breeding process. While troll civilisation had been growing from clones, it was finally time for their original breeding methods to be resumed with that of a Mother Grub.

Anxiety had been hanging over her since she first got a hold of her lusus’ Matriorb. With Eridan’s destruction of the egg, she had been driven to pure rage, but she had also known deep down that she hadn’t truly been alleviated of her burden. With Roxy’s gift of the egg, relief and joy had overcome her, but with it the pressure and the anxiety of her duty had also returned.

Now her heart was racing as she walked deeper into the caverns, alone. Although she loved and respected Rose to no end, this was a task which was sacred to her kind, as well as the moment of her greatest personal fulfilment. The only one she’d consider accompanying her would’ve been Karkat, but she allowed herself a slip of selfish satisfaction of completing this personal quest alone, so it to be thusly marked, unquestionably, as _her_ greatest achievement.

Down in the caves she nurtured the egg. When it hatched she guided the grub to its food, kept it warm, helped it grow strong. It was weeks of labour, intense and dedicated to a single purpose. It was difficult and although Kanaya was unaware, her work transitioned from a dedication of self-achievement to a selfless act. In a way, it had always been. An act for trollkind above all else. Eventually she witnessed the maturation of the mother grub, and finally her pregnancy. It all surmounted to the first natural birth of a troll this universe had ever seen. Kanaya felt pride overwhelm her in the form of radiant warmth. She was a mother who had crossed the boundaries of space to achieve this noble task. A sylph through and through.

Cradling the wriggler in her arms, she began to float into the air. It was not long before she realised the radiant glow in the cavern was far too bright to be coming from her condition alone, but it was still coming only from her. A shiver ran up her body, but it was not unpleasant, it was in fact warm. She felt her skin change, her heartbeat change. Any minor ailments she’d been suffering – cramps from sitting on stone for weeks on end, scars from the horns of the mother grub, aches and pains – washed away. Her body was strong, holy, divine.  Immortal. She barely noticed the wings appear on her back, light and agile, like the black clothes she now wore.

In those caverns, after this selfless, heroic act, the Sylph of Space had finally reached her God Tier.

 

 

ROSE: Hello everyone I hope this morning / evening / night relative to your respective time zones is serving you well. I have big news.

JADE: oooooohhh this is exciting

JADE: don’t keep us in suspense rose spill it!!

ROSE: It was around 7pm last night when my beloved wife kissed me goodbye and headed out of the door carrying her Matriorb

KANAYA: I Ascended To God Tier

ROSE: Babe, I was building the suspense

KANAYA: Sorry How About This

KANAYA: WoooooOOOooooOOOooo Kanaya Maryam WoooOOOoooOOOoo Acended WOOOoooOOooOO To God Tier

KANAYA: The Woo’s Are Supposed To Be Noises Of Suspense

ROSE: Yes well… there it is. The divine cat is out of the bag of destiny

JOHN: wow, that’s amazing!

JOHN: congrats kanaya you have to keep us updated on what totally sweet powers you develop

JOHN: what does a sylph even do?

JADE: um… magic??

JOHN: but we all do magic

JADE: yeah but i think hers is more magic-y. like mine is because i’m a witch

JOHN: i still don’t know how your magic is any different than mine is

ROSE: Yes it seems that our powers were never given any hard set rules. For instance, Dave’s ability to time travel comes from his equipment, however undoubtedly he is in tune with powers of time.

ROSE: It goes without saying we all look forward to seeing how Kanaya develops.

KANAYA: I’m Afraid I Wont Have Much Time To Develop My Powers Unless They Become Directly Relevant To My New Role As Caretaker Of The Mother Grub

ROXY: oh hell yeah you finally did the eggy thing?

ROXY: also ditto on the ‘grats from earlier

KANAYA: Thank You

KANAYA: And Yes I Hatched The Mother Grub. It Was Quite A Cathartic Moment, Regardless Of My Body Literally Transforming Into A Perfectly Healthy Vessel Of Immortality

 

 

When Dave woke up all of his limbs ached from falling asleep at his computer chair. He continued scrolling down the document he had been reading, more than a little brain dead.

“Dave! I’m putting on the water screamer if you want anything to drink!” Karkat’s voice shouted through the walls of their apartment.

Coffee sounded downright irresistible to Dave, and the very thought of drinking warm bean juice in his near future called him out of his chair and pulled him into the kitchen. Karkat sized him up, noting his clothes which hadn’t changed in several days on end and his unkempt hair. Dave wondered if trolls had a superior sense smell and if Karkat could smell the lack of showers on him. Hell, maybe a human would be able to smell it as well. “Sup,” Dave said.

“You look… tired…” Karkat said with his mouth but his eyes said ‘ _you look like a pile of shit who’s lost all control of personal grooming standards_ ’. He pulled two mugs from the cupboard. “Do you want your usual?”

“Hell yes thank you.”

Karkat took out the instant coffee container and the container for his weird troll drink. From Dave’s understanding it was made from ground up bugs, as almost all troll food was in some way made from bugs. He remembered at one time thinking its smell was so repulsive he had to leave the room, but now something about the smell of it was comforting, like coming home.

“I don’t get how you stand this stuff,” Karkat said, passing Dave his mug, and taking a sip of his own delicious bug juice.

“I hated it at first, but stuck on that meteor the inability to alchemize apple juice pushed me towards other vices. And Rose’s addiction pushed me away from _that_ specific one. Now that apples are a practically abundant thing again I still indulge in the sweet juice from time to time but something about coffee it… makes me feel like I’ve actually progressed in life. Like apple juice is what thirteen-year-old Dave drank, and if seven years later I still did the same thing then what’s the point? And there’s like this human culture thing where coffee is what adults drink. Especially young adults they drink way too much and get addicted. Or they used to I dunno maybe current humans never got past the revulsion stage of coffee. So, I guess it’s up to me to keep this great Earth A cultural tradition alive.”

“Mhm, it sounds super fucking rich,” Karkat said. “I still never understood why you chose to live here with trolls instead of getting to know the new humans.”

“Shit man, I just woke up. Can we not delve into my fucked up social psyche right now?”

“Fine. But promise to tell me some time?”

“Yeah sure I guess.”

They stood in the kitchen in silence. There wasn’t much to do other than look at each other. A moment to regard each other’s features, the similarities, like how absurd it was their faces had the same features, and the differences, like the yellow of a troll’s eyes, or the whiteness of this particular human’s hair. They tried not to think too hard about what the other was drinking as they took another sip, eyes occasionally locking. They used to crack up laughing over this, or get embarrassed and divert attention, but after years on the meteor, they were both in mutual agreement that sometimes you just had to be enraptured and freaked out by the presence of an alien in your home and your day to day life.

Karkat’s phone buzzed, and he checked the newest message. “I still can’t believe it can you?” Karkat asked.

“Believe what?” Dave asked.

“The thing with Kanaya, I didn’t know it could happen.”

“What thing with Kanaya, what did I miss?” Dave asked frantically fishing his own phone from his pocket. Curse the skinniness of his sexy jeans.

Dave read for a minute in absolute silence. He tried to take a sip of his coffee and missed, dribbling it down his chin. “I uh gotta, uh I have to… go call Rose.”

 

 

GAME FAQ UPDATE

             Received transmission…

             Time sent: unknown

             Location sent: unknown

             Time received 6:04 AM, Troll Kingdom Standard

             Subject matter: Post Game God Tier

             Author: gameMaestro69

 

‘Long time no see. Of course, we beat the game, as detailed above, so I found updating this thing to be arbitrary and frankly, had put the whole FAQ out of my mind. But a recent development has inspired my inner philanthropic nature to write what will most likely be my last information installation. As chronicled, all but one of our players reached God Tier before we won the game. Living in our created universe we presumed that was the end of our journey ascending ecceladders for the lot of us, however our Knight of Life claimed her title yesterday.

In her nature, she is a defender, and courageously leapt into action when an innocent consort was about to be struck by one of the raining meteor storms our planet frequently experiences. She was almost crushed in the act, but she, and the consort, slipped to safety with only a few grazes. Then she was surrounded by a blinding light. Slowly she rose into the air, and with a bright flash she was wearing the capped beige garb of a Knight of Life.

We came up with many hypotheses about how our Knight of Life attained this ascension. Our Seer of Space’s best estimate was that the nature of the ultimate reward is that those who beat the game get to live in the world they create as Gods, thus it is only right that the chance to ascend is still available to anyone who passed through the gate. Our Bard of Blood’s hypothesis was that the Knight’s _heroic actions_ were what allowed her ascension to take place. If this theory, which again is based on pure speculation, is true, it might also be fair to assume that a _just_ act could do the same, continuing the game’s themes of duplicity.

For now we are all just grateful that our Knight ascended and the concern that she may not have been able to spend eternity with us in our universe is gone for good.’

 

Kanaya’s ascension had been a month prior to when Dave received this transmission. He read the walkthrough page again. And then again. He was stunned, unable to do anything but read it over and over again. He and Rose had had debates theorising Kanaya’s ascension, but this supported their most prominent theory.

“KARKAT!”

Dave scrambled from his room, slamming the doors to their hive until he found Karkat in his respriteblock, half dressed, and about to slip on a shirt. “Karkat come look at this right now!”

“EUGHGHGUGHG!!!!” Karkat shouted as he was dragged out of his room by Dave’s hands on his shoulders, still blindfolded by the shirt halfway on his body, stuck on his arms. “AT LEAST LET ME GET DRESSED!”

“There’s no time dude, you gotta read this right now,” Dave said pulling Karkat through the house. He accidently slammed Karkat’s horns into his doorframe before shoving the troll into his room. Karkat’s arms flailed for a minute before he finally managed to pull the shirt down over his chest.

“WHAT IS IT?” he asked, rubbing his sore head. Even though Karkat seemed a little grumpier than usual, Dave’s excitement did not desist.

“Look,” Dave said pointing at the computer screen.

“Your Sick-Beat-Master-3000?” Karkat asked. “You pulled me from my room and slammed me into a wall to show me some music! I really think this can be filed under the list of things that CAN FUCKING WAIT A SECOND DAVE!”

“It’s not a music machine you slug brained moron, look at the screen.”

“Is a slug an insect Dave? It better not be an insect because if it is that would be awfully xenoph-”

“Slugs aren’t insects… wait… actually… fuck what was the criteria for insects again? They might be… You know what, it doesn’t matter will you just, read, the, damn, screen.”

Karkat reluctantly began reading. “Dave what is this?”

“It’s notes from another SBURB group, or SGRUB or whatever. Other players, _successful_ ones. Just, look read here,” he said, highlighting the passage of the Knight ascending post-reward. “See, even once the game has ended you can still reach God Tier, without beds and whatever other crazy rules.”

“Yeah I know Kanaya did it,” Karkat said.

“But we didn’t know _how_ she did it. But the same thing happened to these guys and they had the same theory as me and Rose about it being due to a heroic act so it’s probably true.”

“I… where did you get this from? Why is it on your music machine?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Karkat,” Dave said, facepalming. “It’s not a goddamn music machine, it’s a deep space wave reader. Or something technical and fancy sounding like that. I asked Roxy and Dirk to make it so we could find information on God Tiers which our respective three groups might have not learned.”

“Don’t the sprites and denizens know everything about game mechanics?”

“The denizens won’t say shit because all the information they give is based on personal planet quests and the ultimate riddle or shit only relevant to making the universe. As for the sprites there’s dick all of them around and their knowledge is pretty much limited to _in game_ facts. So, finding anything about post-game occurrences was basically odds of like zero point fucking shit all. So yeah basically you have like five minutes to get dressed and then it’s time for a house meeting.”

“A h-house meeting? We’re the only ones who live here.”

“Yeah you’re right we can just start the meeting now.”

“A meeting for what?”

“To make a plan obviously.”

“What plan?” Karkat asked as Dave sat down at the computer and pulled up an MS paint document.

“We need to draft a plan. And a plan B and C right through to Z and then we can start doing that double letter thing, so we go right through plan AA and AC, and by the time we get to your chat handle CG we might have enough plans at least to make a start,” Dave said, drawing a spreadsheet.

“A PLAN FOR FUCKING WHAT?”

“Dude have you even listened to a single thing I’ve said. Plans to make you ascend to God Tier. We know how it’s done now so we gotta brain storm like, what counts as heroic acts and figure out a way to get you to do them, and seeing as basically nothing goes wrong here ever I think it’s fair to say a Just act is out of the fucking question. Hell, living in a world almost free from conflict is gonna make pulling off a heroic one pretty rare too.”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t doing something heroic for the exact purpose of getting a reward make it less heroic?”

“Nah cause you’re still doing someone solid. Like you know that whole, rich dude gives away 1% of his profits and it’s like a million dollars but a poor person gives 1 dollar and because its everything they have and that’s what makes it valuable. Well the people who need those dollars can buy way more soup with the million dollars so when you do the calculations it’s a million Johnny Papercaps eating a million cans of soup that night rather than like, all of them fighting over a bean for dinner and being all like ‘ _please sir may I have some more_ ,’ before they go scavenging for scraps and like eating mice for sustenance-”

 “HOW IS THIS RELEVANT AT ALL TO WHAT I ASKED?”

“What I mean is, I don’t think it is _the thought that counts._ When what you’re doing is actually helping people it’s still a heroic act. So like, sit down, lets brainstorm these heroic acts together. Like I guess number one is the example we have, saving someone from being crushed by a meteor, but that sounds kind of dangerous so let’s like, leave that to a lower part of this list.”

“I think danger is what makes the act heroic in the first place,” Karkat said, sitting down on the corner of Dave’s bed. He was still unsure as to why he was going along with this.

“Did you learn nothing from my soup metaphor? There’s nothing dangerous in buying a million cans of soup, expect maybe if you buy them all at once and are exposed to the threat of being crushed under a tonne of aluminium.”

“Well why not put buying one million cans of soup as a plan. I mean I know poverty is basically non-existent and also there’s an entire kingdom founded on buildings of cans so it’s more like, giving some archaic houses to some slightly hungry people, but two shitty plans is better than none,” Karkat said.

“Alright dude, that can be plan P, cause it’s unlikely to work but it’s not too hard to do I guess.”

A few moments of silence passed before Dave wrote, ‘Saving a kitten from a tree’ in the document. More silence passed before he wrote, ‘Visiting a hospital in a Spiderman costume.’ And then crossed out Spiderman and wrote ‘Batman’, and then crossed out ‘Batman’ and wrote ‘John Egbert costume’.

“Absolutely not,” Karkat said.

“Got any better ideas?”

“Any idea is better than that.”

“Well do you have _any_ other ideas?”

“No.”

“Man this is hard. I think it’s time to get on the horn and invite the whole gang over.”

“What gang? Whose horns?!”

“You know the gang. Like Rose is really smart, and Kanaya’s done this once already. Also Jade. She’s good at thinking of nice things to do for people. In fact, let’s just throw a party and invite everyone. The ‘Let’s brainstorm Karkat’s immortality together fiesta!

The collar of Karkat’s t-shirt started to feel restrictive, trapping heat inside his body, making his back sweaty, his hands clammy, and had he forgotten how to breathe? Oh god, oh no. “I-”

“We need to pick up the pace on this. These heroic acts are going to take way longer to perform than they will to plan,” Dave said.

“I err-”

“We need the full brain team on this.”

“I… uhhhh,” The idea of a bunch of people in his apartment, talking about him, trying to assess his heroism, was making Karkat’s mind flip the fuck out, and his body was shutting down as thoughts raced around his head. “I need time to think about all these, uhh, I’ll, uhhh,” fuck this, he was starting to sound like Tavros, “yeah.” And with that he grabbed the nearest jacket he could find in Dave’s room and threw it over his shoulders before he barrelled out of the room. “I’ll uh, be in touch!” he shouted as he made a beeline for the front door and slammed it shut behind him.

Karkat walked briskly down the street, waiting for and dreading the sound of the door to his hive being reopened and shut again as Dave pursued, but to his relief there was no such sound.

It was twilight in the troll kingdom, and the last of the dying sunlight stung his eyes. They were more sensitive now as he approached his final stages of pre-moult, before he would finally have his adult red eyes. He pulled the hood of the jacket over his head. The streets of the neighbourhood were empty, however more and more lights came on as trolls woke up, ready to enjoy a productive night.

It was a good kingdom. Trolls of all blood types cohabited. Even sea dwellers were near their own kind as most troll cities were built around a large and affluent ocean. When he watched the news, or during one of the rare occasions in which he was held in conversation by a troll of Earth C, it was clear that the hemospectrum was just that, a spectrum, and not a hierarchy. No one was above anyone else. There were even schools where trolls could learn from other, adult trolls, rather than the internet and whatever strange monster they were adopted by. The career paths of trolls revolved around productivity instead of carnage.

It had horrified Karkat at first. How defenceless and weak they would all be. But then he unlearned. He unlearned a world where defence was necessary to survive. Where survival meant hit first and hit hard. And more importantly he learned that growing up for him would’ve been so much better in this world. And soon after, he learned growing up in this world would’ve been so much better for all the trolls. Growing up in this world would’ve even been better for Dave.

This world’s differences from his own was beautiful, and they were terrifying.

Karkat waited at a bus stop, and soon boarded the 4 wheeled device, waving his card and beginning the slow, long journey to the brooding caverns.

 


	2. Initiation of plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave and Karkat begin trying to make a hero

 

Seeing Rose’s arms filled to the brim with crying wrigglers gave Karkat the worst deja-vu, and he tried and failed to expunge the memory of twenty-four of the fuckers crawling over his skin and in his hair, making his body sticky and itchy and biting him sharply. He hadn’t been ashamed when he rejected Kanaya’s offer to hold one, or ten.

“Karkat I don’t think you understand how lucky you are,” Rose explained as she bounced a wriggler up and down. “To emphasise how momentous this circumstance you are underselling and attempting to squander here is; searching for this information and actually finding it was really about throwing hope to the wind and seeing what interstellar fart waves wafted back. And somehow, beyond a smidgen of a chance, we still managed to pick up something useful. Truly it has been an incredible venture of extreme mathematical unlikeliness which we were all more than certain was going to wind up being a tremendous waste of time. The fact that Dave’s theory was hounded by extreme doubt from his peers, myself included, and yet he still persevered, means you owe him quite the favour. The universe, no the _universes_ we have lived in have been quite unforgiving. The actuality of a possibility to ascend to God Tier, that there is one more boon to be claimed, could almost be seen as miraculously merciful on behalf of the universe and extra-universal forces that be, compared to the curve balls we have historically been thrown.”

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful. That’s actually one of my main issues,” Karkat said. “I don’t think I _can_ be grateful enough. I don’t know how to accept that Dave invested so much time into this, for me.”

“To be fair, I also invested a lot of time into this, for Kanaya. And to a less personal but equally benevolent extent, Terezi. And anyway, I take back what I said just now. None of this was a waste of time. You deserve the full scope of the Ultimate Reward just as much as the rest of us. All that being said, I do agree that this is a testament to the lengths Dave would go to for your wellbeing. Do with that information as you will, but for his sake, at least entertain the idea of attempting this.”

“I suppose you’re right. What’s the harm in trying, after all,” Karkat said, cautiously side-eying a wriggler who was crawling on the back of the couch. It slipped, still unaccustomed to using its six legs, and fell into Karkat’s lap. It was a brown blood, and its horns were too big and heavy for it to wriggle back onto its belly so Karkat rolled it over. He almost made himself laugh imagining the words HEROIC appearing above his head, as though this small merciful act would be enough to make him ascend.

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Kanaya said. “There could be a lot of harm in trying, especially if you’re going to the realm of full blown, awe inspiring dangerous heroism. You could be gravely injured, killed even. Although Jane would be able to resurrect you, once. Maybe save the potentiality of death for something heroic that’s really worth trying. Something almost certainly likely to succeed.”

“Thanks a lot,” Karkat said dryly, as he began playing with the wriggler’s legs. “So, do you have any suggestions for heroic acts I can attempt?”

“Have you considered carrying the burden of your species’ very survival and eventually nurturing a mother grub to maturation?” Kanaya asked. “That seemed to do the trick for me.”

“I’ll add that to the list,” Karkat said.

 

 

Dave’s list of heroic acts they could attempt was distressingly short, but Karkat reluctantly agreed to give at least one a go. They had to start somewhere after all and hanging out with a bunch of animals seemed like a good way to spend one’s day.

The animal shelter was home to many strange lusus who were too young to take care of themselves. Dave was immediately drawn to the ones which more resembled mammals from earth.

“This is just a straight up weasel but like huge and with a few too many legs,” Dave said, trying to attach a leash to it while it was playing with the three other, already leashed lusus.

Karkat, trying to figure out the walking harness for the cat-like lusus he was tending to, pinched his skin with the latch. “Mother fucker! Stupid fucking skin has gone stiff enough to annoy me but not enough to stop hurting like… AUGH FUCK! I regret this whole decision already. Why did I think this would be the easiest one?”

“Nah bro I think suffering pain and like trials and tribulations is what’s going to make this otherwise fun day hanging out with cool animals into something heroic, you know?”

“Let’s just get on with it,” Karkat said with a scowl. The moment the door to the shelter opened the four animals he was holding onto made a dash for the fresh air, and Karkat’s feet struggled to keep up with them. “DAAAAAAVVVVEEE.”

Dave’s boogle of weasels quickly followed pace, but when they’d grown too fast, he would just take a skip in the air, floating for a moment to catch up. Karkat’s amble was far less graceful and it took Dave every ounce of self-control to not laugh at his roommate’s dilemma. “Look on the bright side,” Dave said catching up to him, “You finally made me do exercise.”

 

 

Karkat was absolutely furious on the walk back to their hive.

“It wasn’t that bad was it?” Dave asked.

Karkat stopped and gestured to his entire body which was covered in mud. He said no words, but the scowl on his face was swearing a mile a minute.

“No more voluntary construction work then?” Dave asked.

“No more voluntary _hard labour_ ,” Karkat said, pushing past Dave trying to get home as quick as possible.

“Don’t dismiss hard labour so quickly. If we don’t make you into a god at least the two of us would become like, totally shredded in the process so it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time,” Dave said.

“Getting abs is not worth laying ten thousand bricks, in the rain, falling into the mud, being completely drenched and frozen!”

“I mean I don’t know about abs but you’d get some good biceps,” Dave said.

Karkat reached into a nearby letterbox they passed, grabbing a rolled up newspaper belonging to a total stranger, and bonked Dave over the head with it. “No more stupid ideas!” Karkat said.

“None of my ideas are stupid ever at all,” Dave said. Karkat scowled harder, his face scrunching up enough to show his fangs. A second later he bonked Dave’s head again before tossing the newspaper away on the ground. “Oh dude littering isn’t very heroic of you.”

“Strider!” Karkat said, throwing himself at Dave and trying to tackle him. They ended up having a half-hearted slapping contest. It was quite pathetic as both of them were exhausted from a night of hard work and their skin was slippery from the rain. It didn’t take long before they were instead holding each other’s hands, occasionally trying to catch the other off guard, but laughing like lunatics.

“You choose the thing we try next, how about that?” Dave asked.

“All my ideas are shit,” Karkat said.

“Yeah I know but you can’t blame me when they turn out to be a major disappointment.”

“Fine.”

 

 

The charitable tasks covering the next few days’ activities were similarly unsuccessful. Volunteering to read books at the local library resulted in hours and hours of reading Jake’s absurd autobiography, and Karkat’s tongue stumbled at each of the old-timey words littered in his dialogue. What even was a doubloon anyway? The tedium of this task was triumphed only by Dave’s next suggestion, which involved Karkat volunteering his knowledge of Alternian troll culture to a team of troll historians.

“Have you ever spent two hours having a conversation about the alphabet Dave, the fucking alphabet?!”

“No but I imagine every primary school teacher ever has,” Dave said, knowing his attempts to quell Karkat’s frustration would be in vain. They were walking through the streets of the troll kingdom which had become a frequent activity now that they were actually leaving their house often. Neither of them had ever learned how to drive, but they seemed to have a silent, mutual agreement that walking was surprisingly more delightful than they had previously realised. For Dave specifically, it was enjoying the air, light, fresh and cool, so different from the heavy heat of Texas and the smog of the city. For Karkat it was a sense of pride from walking outside, on streets he belonged to and had a right to use, absent of fear of an imperial drone spotting him and punishing him for simply existing. “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“The plan is to wake up on the couch and stare at the TV until I fall back asleep,” Karkat said.

“That doesn’t sound very heroic,” Dave said pulling a fake frown.

“How do you know? Maybe it’s super heroic of me to spread the message that sometimes heroes need to take rest days,” Karkat said.

“Well I actually have a fresh batch of ideas for things to try.”

“Kill me now,” Karkat said.

“So we-”

“No. No, no, NO! I’m sick of your terrible shitty awful ideas. You know what, new house rule, no performing dumb hero suggestions made by Dave.”

“Fine. Then I guess it’s time for phase two of the plan,” Dave said. “We go see our friends and listen to their dumb ideas.” Karkat let out a groan and tugged at his hair. Dave grabbed a hold of one of his horns and shook his head. “Come on we’ve only been at this making of a hero business for two weeks and you’re already throwing in the towel?”

“I’m not throwing any towel in any direction, neither in nor out. I just need a break and then… I guess it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to catch up with everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve seen most of them.”

“Hell yeah.”

“And there’s almost no way their suggestions could get any worse than yours have been.”

“Hey!”

“Yeah you’re right Dave, they are all idiots too. There’s a high chance their suggestions will be just as bad.”

 

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Dave watched a yellowish coloured grub crawl towards the precipice of a ditch in the cave. “Uh, Karkat my hands are full are you able to grab her?” he pointed with his chin, as his hands were busy trying to keep a sturdy hold on the two wrigglers he was already cradling.

“Oh shit, Sollux Junior no!” Karkat carefully placed the teal wriggler he was holding down and dove towards the yellow one. As he crabbed a hold of it, its legs wiggled in the air like crazy, determined to walk off the drop to its own death.

“She has a name?” Dave asked.

“No, _he_ does not. But he’s the same blood type as my friend was. Besides Sollux Junior is a perfectly valid name.”

“Do we get to name them then? Is that our reward for looking after these babies? Besides you know, racking up your heroism points?”

“Wrigglers don’t get names until they mature into trolls typically, cause a lot of them don’t survive infancy. Plus, the defective ones are… well… they’re _terminated_ by the jade blooded caretakers.”

“Like, killed? Has Kanaya been killing babies down here?”

“Only the ones which have severe defects like were born wrong and are in immense pain and are going to die soon or something. It’s how she… feeds her uh… condition.”

“Aw man that’s so fucked up.”

“You can’t be the judge of that,” Karkat said. “But in all honesty I don’t know how to feel about it either. I have seen her chainsaw not just one but two of my friends in half so… I don’t hold things that I cant do myself, against her. Kanaya’s just very practical.”

“Fine, but how can you tell which ones are boys? They all look the same.”

Karkat held his yellow wriggler next to a purple one in Dave’s arms. “Firstly, his horns are large but they’re not as sharp as hers, and the colouration is slightly different. Also, the females are heavier because they have thicker bones. When she gets older she’ll get more muscle mass too. And here,” Karkat stuck his fingers into the wrigglers mouth. “His teeth are really blunt whereas hers will already be sharp so watch out.” The yellow wriggler closed his mouth around Karkat’s finger and started sucking on it like a pacifier. Dave was completely perplexed as to why an insect-like organism would have _that_ natural instinct, but Karkat paid it no mind.

“They look pretty weird but I gotta admit, they’re kinda cute,” Dave said. “Are there were baby photos of you, I wanna see.”

“Ha! I doubt it. Maybe there will be a red-blooded troll sometime soon. Its horns would probably the same as my shitty useless nubs.”

“Hey I like your nubs,” Dave said. Karkat smiled at him. The whole scene, Karkat, his… friend? Domestic partner? No that was too… too much. His… _his Karkat_ , holding a baby, smiling at him. The soft flicker of the torch reflected in his eyes, and his pupils were so dilated that the grey ring was almost pure black, but for the first time he noticed flecks of red forming his eyes. Dave had long since given up lying to himself on the objective fact that Karkat looked good. Not attractive in a supermodel way, ripped and buff, but he was beautiful in his own way. His face had flaws which all totalled to their own perfection. Yeah he was an alien but there was a quality of normalcy to him which made him so tangible.  He looked like… home. “You’d make a good dad.”

“Lusus,” Karkat said reflexively. “Fuck, the idea of trolls raising trolls is still so foreign to me.”

“That’s what Kanaya’s trying to implement though isn’t it? Trolls adopting young trolls.”

“Um yeah, probably. I don’t know I don’t keep up with this stuff, it’s all she ever talks about and it’s kind of driving me insane to listen to all the time.”

“Yeah Rose’s going a bit nuts too,” Dave said. “She’s like, actually giving me phone calls just to talk about things other than wrigglers. Bad news for her though, I’m probably going to tell her everything about this fun day care adventure.”

They both put their respective cradled wrigglers down and sat down on the floor of the cave, side by side. It was cold down here, so they pressed their shoulders close to feel each other’s warmth. “I thought you were going to hate this,” Karkat said.

“I thought _you_ were going to hate this. I mean, I thought I would too but honestly, it just… It means a lot to me. To be able to take care of babies. I mean they’re not babies they’re trolls but like… after being raised by my brother in a way that was _wrong_ , I thought I was like genetically destined to be a terrible care taker. And I know babysitting for a few hours isn’t anything like raising a real child but it’s taken away some of the mystery. Of whether I’d like actually care about babies at all. Like I do and I’m doing it and maybe someday I _can_ do it. And I’ll do it right. I’ll have a chance to prove myself.

“Like I always wanted to prove that I could raise someone better than he did, which I think everyone growing up sorta wants to do, but he set the bar so fucking low that it’s just so hard to do worse but then I think maybe I will do better but not good enough and I’ll still be horrible. Or maybe I would just be doing it to prove a point and some little Dave Junior’s life is just a weapon to use against the ghost of my brother. Okay sorry that was… much more than I was planning on saying.”

“It’s fine,” Karkat said, watching a hoard of wrigglers crawl towards them for attention.

From a dark crevice of the cave a soft glow grew until Kanaya appeared. “How is everything going down here?”

“It’s great but damn they’re so needy,” Karkat said as the swarm began climbing his legs.

“Hmm yes it is quite the commitment, I’ve barely had a second to breathe since they were all hatched,” Kanaya said.

“Has there been any Jade bloods yet?” Karkat asked.

“Not yet, although even if there was one it would take a while for her to become mature enough to help out in any way.”

“Hopefully you won’t need to wait too long so you don’t have to rely on dragging incompetent idiots like us into wrigglersitting duty,” Karkat said.

“You two are doing a fine job,” she said, scooping up a wriggler by her feet. She began inspecting it closely, weighing it by bouncing it up and down. “No luck on the heroic act?”

“No, but we’re having fun,” Dave said. “Say, would you uh, describe carrying the Matriorb and like making the mother slug, and everything which consisted of your heroic act… fun? Like do you think Karkat has to do things which make him miserable but are the right thing to do or something?”

“I honestly cannot say,” Kanaya said. “In a way the game as a whole was torture, constantly trying me and testing me and was exceptionally stressful but also undeniably fun. Unfortunately, we are at a disadvantage in understanding Karkat’s journey. The blood aspect is one of the outlier aspects that we have no other frame of reference for. Either way, I look forward to seeing what happens.” And with that she left into another part of the caverns, carrying the wriggler with her.

Dave picked up a new wriggler, watching all six of its legs continue to move helplessly in the air. “Trolls are so weird,” he said. Karkat let out a scoff. “No seriously you all look so weird,” Dave said, putting the wriggler down. “I pretend like I’ve gotten used to it but I really haven’t. Like right now, your mouth. It isn’t even doing anything, it’s fucking closed, and somehow there’s teeth just _everywhere_.”

“Yes, well you look weird too. You’re so pale, and your skin is so soft, how does it not get damaged all the time? And why is you nose so fucking small. Also, you don’t have any horns! What’s up w-”

“The point I was trying to make,” Dave spoke over him. “Is that it really is weird that you guys look so different and yet you are somehow good looking.”

“ _Somehow_ ,” Karkat said with a frown.

“It’s a compliment asshole. I mean it’s also a biological marvel,” Dave said. “Like a lot of attraction comes down to facial recognition and symmetry and whatever. You still look really alien so like, with evolution and shit it makes no sense that I find you…”

“What Dave, what do you find me?” Karkat said.

“You know, aesthetically appealing,” Dave said. Karkat leant forwards and kissed his cheek.

“Yes, well your facial symmetry is not bad either.”

 

 

Dave had never been to an airport before. Not once in his youth had he left his home state, and only rarely had he ever even left Houston. Everything he knew about airports came from movies. Those scenes were brief, a transition scene, rarely a place where the narrative stopped or developed. But following Rose’s advice, he and Karkat had arrived 3 hours before their flight, had been processed in a matter of minutes due to a lack of security concerns in this new world, and were then stuck waiting until it was time to board, dawdling around shops and fast food courts.

It was the first time in a while Dave had been in a place which actually served food just for humans. Maybe he shouldn’t’ve been so nervous about leaving the troll kingdom after all.

Karkat was thoroughly entertained by perfume samples, choosing to spray himself with each and every one they encountered, sniffing the vapour hard, and then sneezing it out again.

The movies had missed how bright the lights were in airports, how clean the tiles were and the frustration of pulling a suitcase along everywhere you went. Dave did freak out when he found a Toblerone bar. It wasn’t the first time he had been surprised to find an arbitrary thing from Earth A, which for some reason had been recreated and introduced to this world. Most commonly he encountered films from his childhood, and presumably some made in the three extra years on Earth B the Alpha group had had. They were recreated as a result of Jake English’s exorbitant wealth paying for his own movie studio designed to remake his favourite movies, which as it turned out, seemed to be every movie.

 

 

Roxy and Calliope had a nice house in the middle of the carapacian city. The outside was modern, minimalist, very sleek and made of white marble. It both blended into the can-inspired architecture of the city surrounding it and stood out as an affluent house belonging to wealthy gods. Almost a second after ringing the doorbell, Roxy flung open the front door and pulled Dave into a tight hug.

“Heyyyyyy!” they shouted into Dave’s ear. A second later they grabbed Karkat, pulling him into an equally strong, iron gripped hug.

“Hi,” Karkat said as all the air in his lungs was slowly squeezed out of him.

The inside of the house would’ve reflected the professional chic of the exterior if not for the place being filled to the brim with shitty wizard statues and pinned up drawings done by Roxy and Calliope covering the walls. At the sight of this subversion of adult lifestyle, Dave’s face lit up.

 

 

“So yeah basically the low down is that we’re tryna come up with a laundry list of heroic acts to try out so if anything crosses your mind we’re open to almost any suggestion at this point,” Dave said, finishing his explanation.

Across the room Roxy and Callie sat together on a couch, eating biscuits, staring at Dave and Karkat.

“Well?” he prompted, hoping that his ramblings had actually been heard because frankly he was getting kind of sick of explaining this over and over to different people. “Did you guys listen to any of that?”

“Yes, yes sorry,” Roxy began. “I was just lost in the imagery of you two runnin’ around doing lil totally random acts of kindness like working in soup kitchens and stirring a giant pot while holding the same ladle. Or patching up a roof and one of you drops a hammer and Karkat’s like ‘Dave go get it!’ and you’re like ‘no you’re the one who dropped it’ and he’s like ‘you’re the one who can fly dumbass’ and then you end up like having a fake argument instead of being productive.”

“You’re not far off unfortunately. Although the whole thing has been supremely more frustrating than it has been adorable.”

“Dang,” Roxy said.

“Well,” Karkat said, “Do you have any suggestions?”

“I dunno have you tried uh… helping old ladies cross the street?”

“Jesus Roxy,” Dave said. “Of course we haven’t we’re trying to do _real_ heroic acts here, not some amateur hour bullshit. Come on what was the point of us coming if you’re not going to suggest anything useful.”

 

 

“Hey, you are you old?” Karkat asked, grabbing a carapacian by the shoulders. She stared back at him with frightened eyes, frozen in place. “Do you want to cross the street?!”

Nearby, Dave was sizing up another chess person. “I don’t know if this one’s small because he’s a child, because he’s old or because he’s a pawn piece.” The confused carapacian quickly walked away. “I think we’re just creeping them out.”

“This doesn’t feel very hero-,” Karkat began before Dave shouted over him.

“There! Over there, chess dude crossing the street, quick!” Dave dove in front of the carapacian, grabbing them by the shoulders. “ARE YOU OLD?! You know what it doesn’t matter, quick Karkat get over here and help them cross the street.”

“This is starting to get really weird,” Karkat said, as a crowd of carapacians late to work began shouldering past him.

“Hm, maybe it’s ageist of us to only help the old ones cross. You know what, how about you just start helping everyone cross, in fact we’ll get you enrolled as a lollypop guard.”

“As a what guard? How are candies on sticks relevant to this at all?”

“Never mind,” Dave said. He spied one carapacian wearing all knitted clothing out of the corner of his eye. “There!”

Karkat grabbed the carapacian dressed in ‘grandma chic’. She was stunned at first, and then disgruntled. “Hi, do you need help crossing the-” she bit his hand with the sharp pointy teeth these chess people had for some goddamn reason, “SON OF A MOTHER FUCK! That’s it Dave we’re done here!”

 

 

“Hello Dave can you hear me alright?” Rose asked from Dave’s computer screen.

“Loud and clear,” Dave said. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Damn that’s a shame,” Dave said. “Maybe we should reschedule for when our equipment is much shittier.”

“Yes, I’m sure the optimal therapy session would involve a shouted back and forth along the lines of, – ‘My childhood abuse is why I can’t stand warm climates!’ ‘What was that Dave?’ ‘I said my childhood abuse was why I can’t stand warm climates?’ ‘You’re going to have to repeat that one? Something about being obtuse as a child?’ – and so on,” Rose said quite theatrically.

“Actually, the ideal therapy session would involve someone who I’m like disconnected to, wouldn’t it? Isn’t having no relation to the client like cardinal rule number fucking one in psychology school?”

“Dave, we both know I never went to psychology school.”

“Maybe you should go get some qualifications. I think writing wizard fics and being a stay at home mom is driving you to do crazy things like become your brother’s therapist.”

“Hey who is on who’s metaphorical couch here?”

“Oh, shit you _have_ to let me psycho-analyse you sometime,” Dave said.

“Absolutely not,” Rose said.

“You know I do it anyway.”

“Of course I know. You’re almost never not doing it. So, Dave is it time to talk about… your emotions?”

“Oh, hell I already regret every decision I’ve ever made that lead to this moment.”

“Yes we are both painfully aware that it is quite tragic that I am the most qualified person to be your therapist due to our mutual experience of growing up on Earth and living through the game, as well as my unique ability to understand and translate the language of Striders.”

“God okay fine where do we start?”

“When was the last time you used a sword?”

“Uh… Fuck.”

 

 

“Okay Karkat you’re the hero so you get first pick,” Calliope said pulling up a movie playlist. Roxy, Callie and Karkat were all sat on the living room couch, with Dave sitting on the floor in front of them.

“Superman, Hancock, Harry Potter, Megamind, Batman, The Incredibles? These all look like terrible generic action movies.”

“No, they’re terrible generic superhero movies, except Megamind cause that shit is a masterpiece and not at all terrible in the slightest,” Roxy said.

“Why would any of us want to watch this garbage… wait this is Dave’s doing isn’t it?” Karkat hit Dave on the shoulder. “Did you seriously get ideas for my hero quest from action movies?”

“Karkat,” Dave said and he turned to face him. His voice feigned offense. “I would never, ever, get an idea from anything other than TV. TV is the father of ninety percent of my knowledge on any given topic.”

“Oh my god. Fine. Tell me at least one of these has a romantic subplot,” Karkat said.

“Almost all action movies have romantic subplots,” Roxy said. “Howeeeeeeever,” they hovered the computer curser over Megamind. “ _This_ one has a heavy focus on the interplay of romance and heroism which may become quite relevant to your quest. Who knows, wink wonk.”

“Why is the main character blue?” Karkat asked ignoring Roxy’s insinuation.

“I guess cause it makes him look more nefarious,” Dave said. “He’s actually a villain in this story.”

“Oh, so it’s a story which exemplifies the human characteristic of associating skin colour with different personality traits?” Calliope asked.

“Human’s _incorrect_ association,” Roxy clarified. “And no Megamind isn’t a racist movie.”

“I’m grey does that make me more nefarious?” Karkat asked.

“I’ve got red blood does that make me the less valuable to society?” Dave dug back. “Besides no force in the universe could ever consider you nefarious. Remember the whole ‘attention worthless human this is your god speaking,’ ordeal?”

Karkat’s expression fell and he hid his face in his arms. “Oh fuck don’t bring that up. Wait, how do _you_ know about that, that was between me and John.”

“Yeah like he didn’t show me the entire conversation right after it happened,” Dave said.

“I was hoping you were all too busy dying and creating universes to keep track of every embarrassing exchange we ever had.”

“Wait what conversation is this?” Roxy asked.

“Don’t worry I’ll send you an extract of it later,” Dave said.

“No the fuck you will not,” Karkat said.

“No I won’t,” Dave said before he turned and winked at Roxy.

“Don’t worry Karkat,” Roxy said. “I can’t stand reading back anything I wrote when I was 16. I was so embarrassing, and so needy for attention and so, ugh.”

“I thought you were quite charming,” Calliope said.

“Nawwww,” Roxy held their hands over their heart, beaming at Calliope.

“Man don’t worry there’s plenty of embarrassing shit I’ve said,” Dave said. “Like reading back the pesterlogs between me and Karkat, you wouldn’t believe how much we used to hate each other.”

“You read our old conversations back?” Karkat asked.

“Uh not anymore. Man I can barely stand Dave from a few months ago let alone dumbass 13 year old Dave who thinks that his memes are fresh, his raps are fire and that his brother is cool.”

“Hey I can’t stand young Karkat either, up top!” Karkat said. The two high fived.

In the meantime, Roxy had pushed play on Megamind, facing no desire to delay watching this perfect film any longer.

 

 

Karkat pressed his body flush against the cold stone wall, trying to make his chest as flat as possible. As long as he was small, silent, out of sight, as non-existent as possible, he would be okay. His world was dark. He lived in darkness, slept in darkness, hid in darkness and suffered in darkness. His breathing sounded too loud, and he tried to suppress it, suppress it so much that his lungs started to sting. He felt lightheaded but was too afraid to breathe.

It was unfair. It was cruel, to make him live like this. To make him suffer. He felt the rage of his ancestor boil inside of him. He felt sadness tug at him. And with those extreme emotions, came the need to cry. He covered his mouth with his hand, pushed his eyes shut, but a tear escaped, red, rolling down his cheek. His lungs stung, now fighting to breath and cry. He was holding his breath so tightly that he felt like his organs were bleeding. And then he couldn’t contain it any longer. He let in a gasp of air. Instantly there was a spotlight on him. He ran.

All he knew to do was run but the light pursued, and a moment later there was the deafening bang of a gun, a sharp pain in his back, and Karkat woke with a start.

In the darkness of Roxy and Calliope’s living room, he gasped for air, trying to ground himself. “It’s okay,” he whispered to himself. “It’s okay. I’m safe, I’m okay.”

He put on a lamp light and laid back down on the couch waiting for his heartrate to slow down to a normal number of beats per minute. Five minutes passed before he pulled out his phone, sending a message to Dave.

KARKAT: Are you awake?

There was no response. He put the phone away and rolled over trying to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He could still see the spotlight of the drone. His body was still on guard. Ready to run for his life. He laid for another ten minutes before giving up and leaving the couch.

He stood on the outside of the guestroom where Dave was sleeping, with his head pressed against the door, growing colder, thinking to himself that he should just try to go back to sleep. But he could still hear the sound of drones, still feel the phantom pain of where he had been shot in his dream. A part of him was still trapped in that world of terror.

He knocked gently, and almost instantly Dave’s voice said, “Yeah?” from the other side. Karkat had learned long ago that even the faintest noise would wake Dave up.

Karkat opened the door, slipped into the room, crossed over to Dave’s bed, and crawled under the covers.

“What’s up?” Dave asked, his voice a husky whisper from sleep.

“Nightmare,” Karkat said.

“Want to talk about it?” Dave asked as he wrapped one arm around Karkat. A moment later his other hand was stroking Karkat’s hair.

“No,” Karkat said.

“Okay.”

A few minutes passed, and Dave’s hand wandered from Karkat’s hair to his horns to his cheek. “Your skin feels different.”

“I thought you wouldn’t notice,” Karkat said.

“Roxy probably has some moisturiser you can pinch.”

“No.”

“Skin care is important yo,” Dave said through a yawn.

“It wouldn’t make a difference,” Karkat said. Silence passed and the strokes of his hair slowed down and eventually ceased. Soon he just focused on the sound of Dave’s slow breathing, unable to feel it against the back of his neck, the skin there already too hardened. But just listening, knowing Dave was there, was enough to calm him, to ground him to this world he lived in now.

 

 

“Actually, I uh, worked with the mayor during his early years helping him create designs for the original Can Town,” Karkat said.

The lead city architect gave the troll a curious look. “Which mayor did you work with?”

“ _The Mayor_. The original,” Karkat said. “Quiet dude, liked to eat plutonium and wore a dumb sash.”

The carapacian and his secretary gasped. “How _dare_ you come into _our_ kingdom and insult our most sacred figure, what gives you the right to besmirch his regal sash?!”

From where he stood behind Karkat, Dave tried and failed to supress a snort of laughter.

“Oh for the love of-” Karkat stopped himself. “Is there a way I can help out or not?”

“Is it an internship you’re looking for?”

“No! I just want to help you do your job.”

“What is wrong with the way I do my job?” the architect asked.

“Nothing! I just want to lend a hand!” Karkat said, standing up. He slammed his hands on the desk. “I’m trying to do a kind gesture, dipshit!”

“Oh my god Karkat okay that’s it,” Dave said, cracking up laughing and taking Karkat by the arm. “I think we’ve caused enough damage.”

“Yes, take this cretin out of here,” the architect shouted. “How dare you come into my city, my buildings, and insult my work!”

“I was building can houses before you were even born fucker!” Karkat shouted before Dave shoved him fully out of the office. “What an idiot! I was there, building the model for this fucking city three thousand fucking years ago on that fucking meteor!”

“I know Karkat I was there,” Dave said wiping at the tears of laughter forming at his eyes. “You can calm down this was clearly a dumb idea anyway. Let’s go get something to eat.”

 

 

Karkat waited at a small round table in the first Café they had found on the main street of Can City. Outside it was dark and overcast. Inside, he watched Dave, who for the first time in a long time, read from a menu and had a range of choices to consider. Back at home Dave was lucky to find anything when they ate out, otherwise it would be the singular customary human food item on the menu. Dave looked in the windows at a line-up of desserts. He was smiling. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

A few minutes later, Dave approached with a coffee and a cupcake. He split the cake in two, passing half to Karkat, before heading for the exit. He held the door open for Karkat to leave through first. It was some kind of human display of chivalry which he didn’t understand because it just made it harder to leave through the doorway. He decided not to question it too hard.

“Thanks…” Karkat said. They began walking and Karkat regarded the cake in his hand. Why was it so soft? And light? It was mostly air, and he wondered if Dave was disappointed he’d been tricked into buying this scam of food. He looked over and Dave seemed perfectly happy with his food choices. Why did he have to be so cynical all the time? He was no longer in a world out to get him, but he just couldn’t let the defensive lifestyle go. “I don’t think I’m very good at being a good person.”

“You’re the best person I know,” Dave said.

“No like… okay I know I’m one of the ‘good guys’. And yeah I made a universe and fought the villains or whatever but all those super hero movies we watched… the heroes are so… down to earth. I talked a big game about being tough and I’m obviously not tough, I’m such a wimp that I make this sugary air dessert look dangerous in comparison. But I don’t think that I’m nice either. I’m not a kind person. I’m not mean either but I’m not your Friendly Neighbourhood Spidertroll, I’m more like your… Tolerable Hermitic Asshole.”

“You’re nice,” Dave said biting into the cupcake and getting icing all over his mouth. His face still held a deadpan, and his shades reflected Karkat’s own pathetic face back at him. “I mean you’re also an asshole but, Rose is an asshole. Dirk certainly is. I am.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Jake’s an asshole through his obliviousness. Jane’s self-interest makes her a bit of an asshole sometimes. Calliope, now they’ve got that sweet nice face, but they’re cheeky, and I’ve heard stories… so yeah they’re an asshole too. Should I go on?”

“I get it we all suck. But I just…” Karkat began, unsure of how he was going to protest Dave’s point. The cloudy sky had begun to release a few drops of rain, only occasionally noticeable on his skin. “I can’t figure out how to sweet talk like you do, or anyone else does. I don’t know how to put on that front. I just… I get angry and pretending otherwise would make me madder. And what’s so offensive about being angry anyway?”

“Fear is a natural response to anger,” Dave said. The rain had started to bead droplets on his glasses now. One drop of rain slipped between Karkat’s jacket, down his back. It would’ve been cold and unpleasant, but his skin couldn’t feel insignificant things like that these days. “It’s kind of the like, evolutionary point of anger isn’t it? Like hey back off I got teeth and I’m not afraid to use them!”

“Yeah I guess so,” Karkat said. “I wish there could be like, friendly anger. Like hey I’m pissed off at the world all the time and you’re the lucky motherfucker who gets to share in my rage for a little while. Witnessing my anger is my blessing unto thee.”

“Well, jokes on the rest of the world cause I find your attitude quite charming,” Dave said. His striking white hair had gone a little grey as it grew wetter. Karkat couldn’t feel the cold, but he saw a shiver run up Dave’s spine, saw his arms draw together for warmth and his hand tremble as he raised the last of his cupcake to eat it. Karkat stopped walking and a moment later Dave stopped too, turning to face him.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Karkat said.

“Thanks for putting up with _me_ and all my dumb ideas and my shitty attitude,” Dave said. He smiled again. It was a good look on Dave. The rain making his hair cling to his face however was a different look. Neither good nor bad, it was something else. A reminder that he was here, present, experiencing this strange new world at the same time, at the same pace that Karkat was. Even in this strange city it was a piece of home always by his side.

Droplets streaked down his face, and Karkat was reminded of every heavy rain scene in a romcom he had ever watched. Dave was _here_ spending his days with him. Wasting time with him. Reaping his ultimate reward with him. “Yo I’m fucking freezing and my cup of Joe is going cold so could we continue this elsewhere?”

Reaping the ultimate reward, the words lingered in Karkat’s mind for a moment longer, as he stared into Dave’s shades, stared back at himself, so closely he could see how red his eyes had grown, no longer two dark blackholes. He had pupils under all that grey, who would’ve known?

“Yeah lets… get back to Roxy’s place.”


	3. Humane Kingdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quest takes a little break

 

The bones of Calliope’s hands clicked constantly against their metal knitting needles. Karkat’s hands were starting to cramp from holding his needles too tightly. Dave was hunched over his laptop typing another description of the kind of video he was looking for. “It can’t be this hard, it just can’t be,” he muttered.

“I’m telling you, it’s not the tutorials’ fault,” Roxy said. “Learning to knit is just something which you gotta be taught. I tried the knitting videos when I was a kid. My mom left knitting supplies all over the house and the only practical use they ever saw was a bunch of kittens having a play fest with them. Lil’ Roxy couldn’t do shit with that yarn, and no amount of YouTube grannies was gonna change that.”

Karkat’s hands got further and further tangled in the wool he was trying to work with. “This is bullshit. How was knitting meant to be heroic anyway?”

“It’s not. Not everything we do has to be about the quest dude,” Dave said. “Just thought it would be fun if we could like, make some cozy ass mementos to take home with us.”

“Why when we could buy perfectly good mementos from stores. ‘I went to the carapace kingdom and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and bite mark from trying to help out a bunch of chess pricks’,” Karkat said.

“Gosh you two have been at this far too long,” Calliope said. “Maybe you need some time apart?”

“Nah,” Dave said.

“Hm… maybe?” Karkat said.

“Trust me, spending too much time with just one person ruins your productivity,” Calliope continued. “Maybe just take a break from this whole quest thing. My best ideas for creative projects come when I’m less stressed out. After I’ve had time to watch some shows, talk with other people, you know, get a fresh perspective on life, I find my horizons considerably broadened. Plus, if I may be so bold, you two seem to be getting on each other’s nerves a little. Having time apart from your roommate helps keep things peaceful at home for longer.”

“Err I don’t know if we need to go so far as to split up the band-” Dave began.

“Yes. Hell yes. Hell fucking yes,” Karkat interjected. “Nothing personal Dave but if I hear one more of your asinine heroic plans spew out of your mouth like the pile of garbage sludge they all are I’m going to blow my fucking casket. Also, no offense Roxy and Callie but I have had enough carapace nonsense for a fucking solar sweep or ten.”

“Maybe take a break at home?” Roxy said.

“No, no I think going different places _is_ broadening my horizons,” Karkat said, a little reluctantly. “Besides if I go home that’s also where Dave lives so we wouldn’t exactly be getting time apart.”

“So where you off to next then? Human kingdom or Consort Kingdom?” Roxy asked.

“If my hero quest, is even remotely related to saving a bunch of dumb lizards I will revoke my divinity and throw myself justly into a lake of fucking lava,” Karkat said.

“Hey, don’t sell consorts so short. One of my best friends reached the peak of his powers by throwing wind around and giving hats to lizard dudes,” Dave said.

“Tell you what, if the Human Kingdom turns up unhelpful for either making me a hero or giving me a better idea, the next thing we can try is giving a bunch of hats to a bunch of lizards and then blowing shit around with a fan or something.”

 

 

After leaving the airport, Dave and Karkat stood waiting for separate taxis.

“First time properly staying in the human kingdom, you nervous?” Dave asked.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Extremely,” Dave said. He looked at Karkat again. It was going to be the first time they had been apart for more than a day, in just over…  hell 6 years. A taxi pulled up. “Uh you can take the first one,” Dave said.

“How heroic,” Karkat said, picking up his suitcase. Almost reflexively Dave grabbed him by the arm and their eyes met.

_Come on Dave, come on,_ he said to himself. Karkat was about to go. Even though it was just for a week or so, it was enough time to make Dave nervous. He wanted to kiss him, but the voices of ghosts danced in his head, taunting him, threatening him, beating him down. _Hell I’m a 20 year old man, I should be able to do whatever the fuck I want_. He really, really wanted to… but he couldn’t. He could see the urgency to leave in Karkat’s eyes, but more prominently the concern over Dave’s mental battle. He read him so well, even through the shades. They were basically transparent to Karkat now.

“I have to…” Karkat began. He reached forward and hugged Dave tightly. A moment later he raced into the car. “See you soon!”

It was less than a minute after Karkat’s taxi had taken off that Dave’s phone pinged with a message from him.

KARKAT: THIS RADIO STATION SUCKS

KARKAT: YOU’VE GIVEN ME TOO HIGH STANDARDS FOR HUMAN MUSIC

KARKAT: ASSHOLE.

 

 

“Hey,” Dave said.

“Hey,” Dirk said.

For a moment Dave regretted everything about this plan. He regretted asking Dirk if he could come hang out for a few days. And Dirk regretted everything too, namely accepting Dave’s request. However how could he have denied it? How could he have possibly said no. Every day locked away in this place which was more workshop than house, talking to his machines, threatened to ebb away at Dirk’s humanity. Talking to Roxy was like a breath of fresh ‘you are human and this is how to act like it’ air. And hanging out with Dave at any given chance was exactly what Roxy had advised. No functioning empathic being would say no when their biological son asked for their time.

“I brought this Xbox I alchemised and there’s this dumb skateboard game I used to play when I was little if you wanted to…” Dave began to trail off.

“Hell yeah,” Dirk said taking the console. He immediately set to work inspecting the cables. Focusing on mechanics was something he could do, an icebreaker. “These archaic pieces of shit aren’t going to be compatible with my TV at all, but I have enough electronics littered about this place that I’m certain I can work it out.”

Dave followed Dirk around as he opened drawers and plucked connecters and converters and transformers out from containers around the place. It was some chaotic mess which Dave was uncertain whether or not was organised in Dirk’s mind, or whether Dirk also had no idea as where anything was either.

“Damn bitch you live like this?” Dave asked, watching Dirk hold a magnifying glass up to a teeny tiny label on a converter.

“This game better be a total piece of shit,” Dirk said. “Otherwise the level of effort I’m putting in to make this work wouldn’t be ironically hilarious at all.”

“Oh trust me it’s trash. It’ll probably glitch and crash on the title screen,” Dave said.

“Good,” Dirk said, plugging the new converters to the Xbox. “Okay that should do it.”

Dave carefully moved a pile of motherboards off the couch, and then shoved aside a mountain of bolts and screws before he was finally able to sit down. He was oddly excited. The menu music to the skating game came out in a low-quality warble, and Dirk passed him a controller connected to the console. Wow this technology really was old as shit.

He selected a free exploration mode and quickly remembered the controls, his childhood muscle memory guiding his skater dude to the MadSnacksYoTM.

“Did Doritos sponsor this game?” Dirk asked.

“That or they made this game inhouse at Doritos HQ.”

“Holy shit,” Dirk said in absolute awe.

It only took three minutes of skating around before Dave unintentionally got his character stuck inside of a wall and he had to get off the couch to reset the console.

Dirk took the controller and spent 10 minutes dicking around in the character creator screen. “Now this guy gets a _lot_ of pussy,” Dirk said, as his polygonal abomination of a character began his, destined to be short lived, skating journey.

Dave couldn’t help but smile. He had actually been very nervous about this, resurfacing a memory from his childhood so closely associated with his brother. But playing it with Dirk was like getting a new and happier lens on it. Maybe this was him finally getting the memories from his childhood he deserved. Playing a terrible game with an actual brother. Someone who didn’t hold an immense power imbalance over him.

 

 

Jane was sitting on her kitchen counter as Karkat cautiously eyed the cup of tea she had made him. He took a bite of one of the biscuits she had served with it. It was a strange consistency, dry throughout and unbelievably sweet. It was so unlike the baked bugs he usually snacked on, but he could see the taste growing on him. “This is pretty good.”

“Try dunking it in the drink,” Jane suggested. Karkat did so and then tasted the biscuit, marvelling at how the whole thing was now warm and soft.

“Damn that’s good. I should probably take some cooking lessons or something, all I do at home is microwave premade shit in boxes.”

Jane’s face scrunched in revulsion. “Well if you’d like a teacher, I’d be happy to show you some things.”

“Oh hell yeah, really?”

Jane let out a soft giggle. “Sorry! You just talk like him so much.”

“Ugh can we not talk about Dave right now. This stupid quest of his has been driving me insane!”

“From the stories I’ve been told your insanity sounds justified,” she said. “That post-office heist you guys tried, my god. So, you’ve just been doing anything that Dave suggests? No wonder it’s all clearly been a tremendous waste of time.”

“Yeah Waste of Time is basically Dave’s God Tier. To be fair, once in a solar sweep a good idea will shit itself out of that brain of his but that has not been the case for this particular sweep. I guess I should ask though, do you have any suggestions for heroic acts?”

“Uh… solving a murder mystery. Feeding soup to the homeless?”

“This place is so perfect that there’s no homeless and there sure as fuck are no murders.”

“Then running a volunteer cooking class? I don’t know.”

“I don’t know how to cook,” Karkat said.

“Anyone can cook,” Jane said. “Like, what about soup? Everyone can make soup. You just throw some shit into a pot and put it on the stove, and then wham bam thank you ma’am it’s soup,”

“I burn soup. Also I don’t know _what_ to put in the pot. Like what can I eat and what can Dave eat and what tastes horrible. You should teach me how to make something humans and trolls can eat.”

Jane tapped her chin for a second. “Eureka!”

“Who what now?”

“That’s what my next cooking book will be!”

“Is eureka a food?”

“No, a book of good meals for both trolls and humans.”

“If you ever need a troll to test recipes out on I can probably find some space in my schedule of doing literally nothing at all for the next 50 years. Well, besides all these pointless non-heroic acts.”

“It’s such a good idea. Especially since more and more humans and trolls are… uh… co-habiting.”

“Wait I thought… yeah now that I think about it there’s been way less blurring of cultures than I would’ve expected from three civilisations created by immature horny teenagers.”

“Well if you study the political history and climate of the kingdoms today-”

“I assure you I don’t.”

“Neither do I but I have a busy-body friend who needs to know everything about all subjects always especially societal trends and the psyches of others. So he, a Strider who shall remain unnamed-” she coughed “- _Dirk-_ was telling me all about how there was a kind of stigma against human and troll relationships especially since humans could give natural birth and the trolls were waiting for the return of the Matriorb so it made lifestyles quite incompatible. But forbidden romance still blossomed amongst the masses. And then the gods of all the species returned and four of them were already in troll-human romances I mean-” her eyes went wide as she stared at Karkat. “Uh I mean like couplings as in pairs like friends like uh-”

“It’s okay pretty much everyone in existence ever thinks we’re a couple.”

“A-are you not?” she asked.

“I… don’t really know?” Karkat asked. “Can we just… talk about something easy like food again?”

“Sure, what do you want to learn to bake?”

“What is that thing humans make for each other’s wrig- birthdays? With the sugar liquid and the fire?”

“A birthday cake?” Jane clarified, jumping off the kitchen counter.

“Yes I want to make one of those. We can’t get them in the troll kingdom and I thought it would be a nice surprise for the debatably less meddlesome Strider next time he has another solar sweep celebration.”

“Aww,” Jane said over the sound of her pulling pans and bowls from her cupboards.

“No, no awing! This is a purely sardonic cake, to poke fun at weird human culture. Also, they taste good and for some reason John fucking hates them. Not that this is about trying to make him angry that’s totally not what this is about.”

“Wait what? Why would you be trying to make John angry?”

“Oh uh… no never mind.”

“He’s my dad so you legally have to tell me. It’s insensitive to human culture not to,” she said.

“Oh shit really? Well okay, uh I maybe-used-to-have-a-hate-based-crush-on-him can we move on from this conversation now and literally never bring it up again?”

Jane burst out laughing. “Okay, okay.”

“Uh, do you know why John hates cake so much?”

“I don’t know he won’t tell me,” Jane said. “It probably has something to do with his hatred of Betty Crocker.”

“Ugh, yeah I suppose it’s valid to hate anything associated with the Batterwitch’s empire,” Karkat said, shaking off a shiver from his spine.

“Yeah well… I’m kind of stuck with the name. I considered changing it but my baking emp- company is branded on it. Also, on a more personal note, it’s still my Dad’s name so… I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’ll fix the Crocker legacy? Not that anyone here knows the original legacy besides a few random immortal fucks. But hey, it’s the thought that counts. If anyone can make something good of it, it’s you.”

Jane was staring at a packet of flour, not really looking at it. When she spoke she was quiet, distant, “Thank you Karkat. We should… we should really catch up more often.”

 

About an hour later Jane had successfully guided Karkat through the cake making process. Teaching a troll how to crack an egg was one thing, teaching him what an egg was and why it wasn’t that weird to eat was another challenge. Karkat ended up concluding that humans just worked best when they didn’t think too hard about what they were eating.

“I think it’s fair to say that cooking will not be part of my heroic gift to the universe,” Karkat said, holding his head under the sink to wash flour out of his hair. “If anything, I’ll slip on something wet and hit my head on the oven and die a just death to save the universe from witnessing any more kitchen disasters conducted by me.”

“You’ll get better with practice,” Jane said. “But yes, I do think a major flaw in your plans has been that you’ve been going on everyone else’s ideas of heroism. Maybe try to focus on your own skills.”

“I’m not good at anything,” Karkat said.

“Come on, none of us were chosen cosmically because we were mediocre.”

Karkat thought as he dried his hair. “I mean I’d say based on the results of this place I can make a pretty good universe, but I fucked up the first one I made. Hey, I guess practice really does make perfect, huh? Uh other than that… everyone keeps saying that I’m a good leader but I just… never really saw it. I guess I was good at computer programming. Maybe I could teach a bunch of kids how to program. Then again I was only actually good at making viruses and I think introducing computer viruses to this paradise world would bar me from ever being a god.”

“Well… I’m sure there’s plenty of other things you’re good at. You just don’t know it yet. Or think that they’re extraordinary when they really are.”

“Yeah maybe.”

 

 

“So how’s the attempts at divinity fairing?” Dirk asked, quirking an eyebrow over his glasses momentarily, before returning his attention back to the robot head he was currently tweaking. Dave was sitting on a stool near where Dirk was working, munching on a packet of chips Dirk had found lying around in his sylladex. The function of Dirk’s fetch modus was quite intriguing, and some day when he was better capable at distancing rap battles from his Bro, Dave hoped the two of them could engage in some competitive slam poetry. Or better still, some collaborative rapping.

“Pretty abysmally,” Dave answered. “I think Karkat’s just getting more and more pissed off about it, which like, doesn’t really help emphasise the heroism we’re aiming for. Imagine like Superman saving kittens from firepoles and being like _‘Take better care of your meowbeast next time or I’ll eat it’_ and then everyone’s laughing nervously cause they don’t know if he’s being serious or not, so they look to me and I’m like, _‘Haha good one Superkat let’s move it along’_ and he’s like _‘What do you mean that cat looked genuinely tasty’_ and everyone can just feel the godly energies seeping away from the whole scenario.”

“ _D_ _oes_ your boyfriend eat cats?” Dirk asked.

“No, he doesn’t. Also, he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Shame,” Dirk said.

“No, I like that he doesn’t eat cats. It’s probably one of the top ten best things about him.”

“That wasn’t the tragedy I was referring to but go off.”

“I know I’m just kidding. The only weird things trolls eat are bugs.”

“Humans eat bugs,” Dirk said with a deadpan that Dave found very upsetting.

“Wait… do you eat bugs?” Dave asked. Warily he looked at the label on the bag of chips he had been snacking on and began checking the contents.

“You don’t?”

“No who the fuck eats bugs?! I mean and is also a human!”

“What the fuck did you think I ate in the middle of the ocean for my whole life? Wasn’t like I could pop down to the fucking Sunday farmers market.”

“I just thought you grew up eating Doritos and soda like I did.”

“I ate those too, but if that’s all I ate I’d be a scrawny dude who couldn’t tell the guy I’m living with that I want to date him, like some kind of tool.”

“Touché, but I don’t eat bugs so like I don’t think you can legally ever offend me anymore,” Dave said.

“Humans from your timeline ate bugs too you freak. And you know like, red food dye was made from bugs,” Dirk said. “Eating bugs is really no big deal, Dave.”

“This is by far the worst conversation I’ve ever had.”

“Is it really though?”

“No not by a milestone,” Dave admitted. “To be fair this whole God Tier ordeal alone has resulted in some doozies of convos. Getting hella personal and weird. We got into a serious argument over how many trees you’d need to plant to make your act heroic.”

“It’s 420 right?” Dirk said.

“Yeah of course it’s 420, not even for the weed joke like that’s just a decent number of trees I reckon.”

“Totally,” Dirk said. He went silent for a moment, and Dave assumed that the pulling of another microscope lens, the switching to a finer screw driver, the more intense gaze was what was occupying Dirk’s thoughts but a moment later he said, “If you want my opinion, which is always in high demand due to its immense value deriving from it basically being pure, logical, downright fact in all given contexts on all topics which ever existed ever… I think you’re going about this all wrong.”

“Yeah I think so too. If saving 20 kittens from 20 trees, with and without passive aggressive statements over devouring them didn’t do the trick, I think I’m gonna take all the advice I can get.”

“Well, I think that the act needs to not only be heroic, but thoughtless, natural. And it needs to be related to both aspect and class. Kanaya ascended when she acted as a Sylph of Space. Her act was going against the odds of the universes she transpired through, and she used their borders, their rules, their nature. Bending the rules of space she worked magic, like a sylph. Additionally, her magic was in tune with her personality, to that of a mother’s perseverance in the quest to preserve her own kin’s life. Yes, there was a lot of effort in the execution but not the planning and certainly not in the decision making. In fact, there was no decision making at all.

“For you, a knight of time, it would be using your powers with time to protect someone you love. Even with your reluctance to time travel, it would come at a circumstance where you would not hesitate in your action. You wouldn’t think twice about travelling through time to stop something. If there was one deadly thing you were already too late to prevent, the moment you figured it out you would jump back in time to stop that thing from killing Karkat.”

Dave’s breath hitched for a moment, the final blow of Dirk’s statement catching him off guard. Dirk’s uncanny ability to read people often made them uncomfortable. Even when they knew he was reading them, always analysing, always calculating; when he finally verbalised those observations, it surmounted to a sucker punch.

“So, what would Karkat’s act be?”

“Purely hypothetically,” Dirk began, as though he had any doubts there could be a flaw in his calculations, “Knights act to protect those they love. Blood is about connecting those you love. So, he’d perform an act to protect his friends. Or he would mobilise his friends for their own good. Now the problem he has is that mobilising other people is always the hardest part of any plan. I don’t want to be defeatist, but I think you should give up. Like, literally stop. Don’t give up hope, just give up trying. And if the situation presents itself, if Karkat is worthy, he will rise up. He will ascend.”

They sat in silence for a while longer. Dirk finally put his tools down, picked up the robot head and placed it onto the robot body next to the bench. He spent a moment hooking it up to his computer. “Here check this out,” Dirk said wheeling his chair aside so Dave could see the screen. It displayed a program with a series of buttons. Dave clicked the one labelled ‘left arm raise’ and a second later the robot performed the action described.

“Woah.”

He pressed the one labelled ‘fist bump’ and the robot stuck out its hand. After a few seconds the robot said, “Don’t you think you’ve left a bro hanging long enough?”

Dave laughed and offered the robot the bump it deserved. “Dirk this is awesome.”

Dirk smiled, rubbing grease off his hands onto a small cloth. “Thanks… I… uh I know you unload a lot on me about your past with your bro but… if you’d indulge me I’d like to unload some of my shit, about my bro on you.”

“Sure,” Dave said and he turned his chair to face Dirk.

“Well it’s just… its really good hearing you praise my work. I spent a large amount of my childhood hanging out with an imaginary Bro, imagining how he would respond to all the things I built and achieved. And like scolding me when I screwed up, or like being nice about it like _‘pick up your bootstraps buddy you can do it champ!’_ And of course, I felt weird about fantasising about some random celebrity being my brother. Like me and Roxy, we had a feeling that we were connected to our guardians of choice but we had no real proof. So, it was kind of just two kids playing make believe at having parents. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I just… finding out that you really were related to me, even though it was in a way I was not expecting at all, it really helped… I felt normal. I mean I’m clearly fucking far from the bar of being normal, but it made me feel… like I had a right to fantasise all those years. And it’s no secret I’m my harshest critic so seeing you actually be impressed my things I consider mediocre of myself, it’s… Well, thanks, although I’m not really sure what I’m thanking you for so whatever.”

“Well, thanks for listening to all my shit too. Between your imaginary Bro and my shitty older asshole, I think we have a real shot at figuring out this brother thing.”

 

 

“Any new ideas?” Rose asked from Dave’s computer screen.

“Nah, it’s been hopeless,” Dave said, spinning in his chair, and then slumping down on his hands. It was such an ordinary action, to slump, something almost all humans did, an expression of frustration. All humans except, historically, Dave. He was learning how to express himself more and more prominently, less hesitation in showing weakness. Even if it was something he’d do only in front of his sister, it was progress and she was extremely proud of him.

“Well, you are neglecting a whole alternative path.”

“Which is?”

“A just act.”

“Man, I ain’t ignoring it I just gave up on it after like two minutes of thought. Like what even _is_ a just act? Killing someone evil? But who’s left who’s evil? Like are we going to go to the consort kingdom and find the meanest fucking lizard we can and beat him up? Besides it’s not like Karkat could ever _kill_ anyone anyway. Or even hurt anything for that matter. We went fishing once and when he caught something he felt so bad he threw it back into the ocean. I’m a little afraid to tell him where his troll food comes from.”

“There’s other things which could qualify as a just act.”

“Like what?”

“Uh…” Rose found herself at a loss. Her phone began to buzz with messages from Kanaya. Frantic, angry vents. “Hang on.” She skim-read a few before she decided consoling Kanaya would require some more intense attention than she could provide right now. Instead she began perusing the internet. “Justified… Something, ethical, objectively right. Something… justifiable.”

“Almost nothing happens, at all, ever. So it’s kind of a lost cause. Why did we have to be so good at making universes, cause this one is basically paradise and not in need of any heroes.”

“It’s not fully trouble-free. You two just have a habit of locking yourselves away from its finer struggles. The rest of us have issues, granted day to day ordinary life issues and not ones requiring godly acts of heroism or just righteousness.” Her phone buzzed with more rants from Kanaya. “Things like the intricate difficulties of raising baby grubs on your own, without help because your wife doesn’t know enough about grub anatomy to make a substantial contribution. You know, to pluck a random example out of nowhere in particular.”

“Well shit. Yeah, I guess we have been pretty isolated. Our biggest issue on the day to day is sitting down on the couch and leaving the remote across the room. Then we just go on our phones cause we’re both stubborn assholes so neither of us can be bothered to retrieve it and then we get bored on our phones and fall asleep on the couch but it’s like only 3 am so then we wake up at like 2pm and all the stores are closed so we don’t have time to buy anything so then what are we meant to have for dinner? The sun is already up so then we both scramble something together to eat and we’re both disappointed cause neither of us can cook and then we’re sick of TV so we go on our computers but no one is awake and… hey are you paying attention?”

“No,” Rose said, reading more of Kanaya’s messages. Her thumbs danced over the keyboard, not actually typing anything because she didn’t even know where to start. “You know what,” she threw the phone away from her. “I can’t deal with her shit right now.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Dave asked.

“No and yes. No nothing serious, but yes I am struggling with how… involved her new job as mother grub caretaker is. She comes home late, and tired.”

“Ah, so it’s been a while since she took you to pound town eh?”

Rose’s face betrayed nothing. “Mostly my frustration comes from her constantly talking about it. The work is very important to her but I think we need a vacation. If you and Karkat are ever in the field to do some full-time wriggler sitting duties I’d love to enlist your services.”

“Oh hell no.”

“It was a joke, I don’t think she would entrust anyone with her job, at least without her express supervision.”

“Maybe she should open up apprenticeships to the general public, instead of just waiting around Jade bloods.”

“I think there’s some genetic like, naturally instilled motherhood instinct which makes Jade bloods perfect for the job,” Rose said. “But I suppose asking her to find a helper in the meantime isn’t a terrible suggestion. Perhaps, Strider, it is even a good suggestion.”

“What’s what I’m here for. And if you find someone to take over her job for a little while you know what that means? You two can book your express tickets, first class, direct flight out of troll kingdom straight to pound town.”

“Stop saying pound town,” Rose said.

“Why am I making you uncomfortable?” Dave asked.

“Very well then, when exactly are you and Karkat taking your own visit to pound town?”

“Okay meeting adjourned talk to you later, goodbye!”

 

 

The doors to Jake and Jade’s manor were massive. Dave raised the heavy brass knocker and listened to it crash down. The bang almost made him flinch. After five minutes he knocked again. It was a big house and he was willing to give Jade the benefit of the doubt. After a few more minutes he pulled out his phone and gave her a ring.

“Yeah I’m here, outside your goddamn castle,” Dave said.

“Oh my god I completely lost track of time,” Jade said. “I suppose that never happens to you, hehe.”

“Nah not really,” Dave said. The sound of her giggles on the other end reawakened something in Dave. Some childhood innocence. Whenever he tried to reflect on good parts of his childhood, objectively enjoyable, good memories, untainted, a lot of them wound up being conversations with Jade.

“We’re just coming back from a walk we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Dave had presumed ‘we’ was her and Jake, until from around the side of the building, Jade screamed Dave’s name, ran up to him to embrace him, and slowly trailing behind her was Karkat looking red to the face and completely winded.

Jade hugged him tightly. Even though she was fully capable of floating in the air, she preferred to use her whole weight to pull on Dave’s back, and honestly, he preferred it this way, struggling to keep her held up, a real-life force of friendship he could feel. It was how he had always imagined her hugs would be like when he was a child.

Karkat moved approached, his legs wobbling from exhaustion.

“You gotta get some electrolytes in you bro,” Dave said.

“I had no idea you were coming here,” Karkat said, trying to stand up straight and failing miserably.

“I had no idea you were already here,” Dave said. Jade giggled mischievously as she pushed her front door open.

“Well I just figured, _hey Jade’s really nice and really creative maybe she has some ideas_.”

“And, does she?” Dave asked, as they followed her inside.

“She does!” Jade said.

“She’s lying,” Karkat said making his way to the closest couch. “They’ve all been elaborate tricks to do hikes with her.” The inside of Jade and Jake’s mansion was an absolute mess. It was filled with strange hunting trophies, potted plants, mounted rifles, dog toys and dog beds. Once again, Dave was blown away by the way his friends lived, delighted that so many people he knew and cared about loved hoarding random shit. The tiny Rose who lived inside of his mind said something cynical about it reflecting the messiness of his childhood home, and he rolled up a newspaper and bopped that Rose on the head.

“Lies and slander!” Jade said, going to the back door and releasing a loud calling whistle. A moment later seven dogs barrelled into the room. Jade clearly had a preference for large fluffy dogs, as three of them were Samoyeds, one was a Saint Bernard, another a Golden Retriever and the other two were corgis.

“Oh no,” Karkat groaned, as the Saint Bernard jumped onto the couch and stood on his chest. The others headed directly for Dave, desperate to sniff out the new stranger.

“I have given what I consider to be incredibly useful suggestions. First, we went on an archaeological dig because Indiana Jones is Jake’s favourite hero, and what would be more heroic than saving a desperate damsel from a big boulder about to crush her?” Jade said, pretending to swoon at Karkat’s feet.

“You are no damsel,” Karkat began. “If anything you’re the one who would be saving me because by the time we made it to the site my legs hurt so much I couldn’t do anything except sit down and watch Jade dig a hole in the ground for three hours, in the direct fucking sun I might add, before we had to then do the hike _back again!_ ”

“Oh my god you’re such a big baby,” Jade said. Most of the dogs had taken to running around the house, with two of the Samoyeds barking up a storm at each other and the golden retriever sniffing Dave’s bags intensely, trying to find food.

“ _Then_ she tried to make me hunt monsters,” Karkat said. “And I was thinking _oh at least hunting things is somewhat related to being a knight so why the fuck not_ but it turns out that when you scream at the sound of anything moving anywhere near you and also don’t know how to hold a gun because you don’t have the right strife specibus you are actually really shitty at hunting.”

“He ended up captchaloging the gun in his weird hacker fetch modus, and then accidently crushing a fairybull under it and then he cried,” Jade said with a pout.

Karkat threw one arm over his eyes and began rubbing the Saint Bernard behind the ears with his other hand. Dave understood the need to recoil in shame. He knew what it was like to grow up in a world where violence was expected. Where excellence at killing was expected. Where weakness and gentleness were punished. But Dave had slowly been unlearning a lot of things. He wanted to reach out to Karkat, to hold him, to tell him it was okay, more than okay. To tell him that kindness was not weakness. It was part of what made him beautiful. He wanted Karkat to _know_ that he was beautiful. That he was perfect just the way he was.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow then?” Dave asked.

“If it involves walking an _inch_ out of this house, it’s fucking cancelled,” Karkat said.

“Clearly spending time apart from me did wonders for your temper,” Dave said, reaching out with his foot and jabbing Karkat’s arm with his toe. Over the sound of the dogs playfighting, a growl which was distinctly Karkat’s rumbled for a moment.

 

 

Karkat woke up in the middle of the night. Even with all the intense expeditions Jade had been dragging him along on, his nightmares were adept of tearing every ounce of tiredness out of his body. The other side of the bed was empty. He wondered how Dave had been sleeping in their time apart, not that Dave usually slept particularly well under normal circumstances.

Karkat stood up, grabbing a hoodie and leaving the room quietly. The manor was fairly spooky during the day, but it was downright terrifying in the dark. Outside, the moon cast strange shadows on the weapons on display. This was not a place he could imagine Dave feeling comfortable in at all.

Karkat quietly opened the giant oak front door making sure to leave it unlocked as he slipped outside. The night air was colder than he had expected, and the chill of night went straight through his clothes, his skin, and froze his bones. It was nothing like the warm nights in the troll kingdom, but Karkat had spent the greater portion of his formative years torturing himself so surely he could withstand a bit of unpleasantness. He wouldn’t begin to guess where Dave would’ve gone off to and he was mostly concerned with clearing his own thoughts. Remembering the playground he and Jade had passed on one of their many hikes, he began walking. It was only a block away and had some interesting looking equipment.

Even from a distance he could recognise the figure sitting on a swing was Dave, a familiar silhouette in the darkness. Karkat made sure his footsteps were loud enough to hear so Dave wouldn’t be spooked on his approach, although it was hard to sneak up on Dave purposefully anyway. It struck Karkat with great sadness to know that Dave had been trained to listen out for danger, but then again so had Karkat. A few years ago he would’ve just presumed growing up in terror was a mutual normal aspect of life. Now they both knew better.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Karkat asked, his voice coming out surprisingly crackled from lack of use, tiredness and cold.

“Obviously,” Dave said. Karkat sat down on the swing beside him, barely moving. “You cold?”

“No,” Karkat lied.

“Tell you what, close your eyes.”

Karkat frowned at him.

“Just do it. And keep them closed,” Dave said. Karkat put his hands over his eyes and a few seconds later he felt a warm blanket around his shoulders. “Okay you can look now.”

“How did you… Did you… have that captchalogued?”

“A boring ass blanket?” Dave paused for a moment. “Yeah let’s go with that.”

“What other explanation is there?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dave said.

Karkat looked around the neighbourhood. It was so uncanny to see a city asleep and quiet in the darkness. Only the streetlights were on, and very rarely a car would pass by. Otherwise shadows hung heavy over the world, and windows remained pitch black. It made sense, from what he understood of human biology. The warmth of the sun helps with their thin skin maintain temperature and gives them vitamin D. The light triggers chemicals in their brains which wakes them up, gives them serotonin. He wondered how much Dave’s body struggled with the troll world. How much Dave struggled with it.

“So… is this a bad time to ask you the question?” Karkat asked.

“Which question?”

“Why you live in the troll kingdom?”

“I… uh… I mean there’s a lot of reasons. You’re kind of my best friend so I wanted to stick with you.”

“Well, I guess I want to know why you don’t live here, with the humans? You didn’t even ask me about it I probably would’ve said yes.”

“You couldn’t withstand the sun here.”

“I’d find a way. Buy a fancy umbrella or something.”

“Sounds annoying,” Dave said.

“Well?”

“Well what? I don’t… I don’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to live here. I just… I never really learned _how_ to interact with humans except online. So, the only humans I met in person were people who were already my friends, or more than happy to become friends with me. And the other human I knew was someone who was incredibly violent so… But being on the meteor I _had_ to learn how to get along with trolls. I developed that skill. And even if I didn’t, feeling out of place in the troll kingdom is fine, because I’m not a troll so it wouldn’t be weird to be out of place, I’m literally in an alien situation. But here, not fitting in means that I’m weird and not just weird because I’m a different species, I’d be weird because I’m _wrong._ Because I was raised _wrong_ and I developed and grew up _wrong_ and broken.”

“You’re not wrong, you’re just different.”

With a snide tone Dave said, “ _You’re just special_.”

The sarcastic insult didn’t translate to Karkat’s cultural understanding. “You _are_ special, Dave. Of course the humans here wouldn’t understand you. None of the trolls understand me. None of them are mutant bloods, and even if they were they didn’t grow up like I did. Ostracised. Afraid.”

Dave looked at him. All Karkat could see were shades, but Dave could see Karkat, his eyes, and he peered deeply. “Do you ever think we chose to live together because we’re too much alike? Like sometimes we act like clones of each other.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, if I lived with myself I’d get that motherfucker evicted within the first hour.”

Dave started laughing. “Okay maybe you’re not my exact clone. As someone who has met many iterations of himself I can say that you are actually quite a different dude. But you’re the same as me where it counts. Like no one else has gone through half the shit I have, but you went through your own shit which was different but it was also so much weirdly the same as mine.

“And it’s not just that, like, it’s hard to put into words. You rip on my bullshit for fun and I rip on you, but we call each other’s bullshit out when it really matters. You balance me, Karkat. Like I think I could do it, live here if I had you. I could probably live anywhere. I didn’t choose the troll kingdom, I chose you. And there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t been glad that I did that.”

“I’m glad I chose you too.”

 

 

Halfway through breakfast Jake English returned home to the HarleyEnglish manor. He was covered in dirt, sweat and the widest grin Dave and Karkat had ever seen before. “Good morning fellows!”

His clothes were half torn to shreds. His singlet was basically a tight fitting piece of scrap fabric which clung to his pectorals as tightly as his booty shorts clung to his nether regions. Dave averted his gaze, intently staring into the bowl of cereal he was eating.

“Oh yes! Now that everyone’s here we should go on that walk around the Red Lake today!” Jade said. “You two are going to _love_ it, it looks spectacular this time of year.”

“We’ve been doing nothing but hiking for the past three days!” Karkat said, already sounding winded. Dave noticed the bags under his eyes from their sleepless night before.

“Yeah and I just flew in yesterday so I gotta agree with my pal here,” Dave said.

“You guys are no fun,” Jade said. “What are we meant to do then?”

“Have you ever heard of movies Jade? Movies are fun,” Dave said.

“Ah I have to agree with the young chap there,” Jake said, as though they weren’t all practically the exact same age. “A perfectly fine form of entertainment. Did you know my studio is currently in the process of recreating the Pee-Wee trilogy?”

“Oh yes the finest of old-Earth cinema,” Dave said, hoping that he would never be subjected to watching any of those awful films.

“Is that all you two do back in the troll kingdom?” Jade asked. “Just laze around watching movies like a bunch of vegetables?”

“No. Sometimes we play video games,” Karkat said.

“I take it back,” Jade said. “That comparison was insulting to vegetables.”

Jake sat down and began pouring a bucketload of milk into his bowl. “So Dave, how’s the ole Dirkster going? What is he burying his nose in these days?”

“The usual. Stroking his own ego by making crazy ass robot with no practical purpose.”

“Astonishing! He’s so cool isn’t he?” Jake said, finally switching over to pouring in some cereal.

“Yeah he’s pretty cool.”

 

 

They successful made it through half of the day without being productive before Jade dragged them all along on a dog walk. Although they liked to complain, Dave and Karkat finally surrendered, and admitted that watching dogs run back and forth after a ball was a supreme source of enjoyment.

Surprisingly, Karkat offered to help Jade with cooking. She liked to talk about all the vegetables she had grown herself, and offered Karkat seeds and soil and planting tips, while he ignored her to instead focus all his attention on cutting food with a knife without cutting off his fingers.

Karkat’s movie of choice that night was Dirty Dancing which they watched over several drinks. Everyone except Dave loved the film, but Dave had long since learned to tolerate generic romcoms by focusing on the sound-track. It was a fun little task he gave himself, analysing how music impacted the story line, the audience’s emotions and the characterisation. ‘In The Still Of the Night’ was so effectively carrying Dave’s mind away that he hadn’t noticed Jade and Jake get off the couch and start swing dancing.

“Dave,” Jade said. “Dave!”

“Huh, yeah?” he asked, turning around to watch her twirl in the arms of her father.

“Remember that conversation we had as kids? About dancing?”

“Uh maybe? I don’t think so?”

Karkat watched the back and forth silently from where he sat curled up on the couch.

Jade and Jake split, as Jake went about refilling everyone’s glasses. Jade leaned over the back of the couch and pulled out her phone and passed it to Dave.

 

GG: what’s up kool kid B)

TG: nothin much. just chilling. tired as fuck

GG: oh why are you so tuckered out?

TG: bro’s been keeping me busy for the past two hours

GG: doing what?

TG: uh dancing

Reading the lie made a knot form in Dave’s chest.

GG: That sounds like so much fun!!!!!

GG: OMG I miss dancing so much. Me and my grandpa used to dance all the time. And Bec is the WORST dance partner. BLEH!

TG: haha well maybe when we finally catch up you can show me some moves

GG: aren’t you meant to be the smooooooth kid? you should show me your moves?

TG: hell yeah I’ll show you my moves

 

“Well,” Jade said, and she bounded over to a gramophone to put the needle down, “Time to pay up Dave. Show us what you got.”

A scratching dance tune played out, echoing through the room. Dave looked at his glass of wine which was nowhere near empty enough. He looked at Karkat who shot him a smirk.

Jade took his hand and he thought, fuck it, he was just as entitled to have stupid fun as anyone else alive was. He got up and the two started dancing. He had no idea how to do this and was certain they both looked dopey as all hell from an outside perspective. He took Jade’s hands, spun her around, watched her skirt flare out, and hey this actually was fun. A minute later, he gently bumped into Jake’s hulking mass of back muscles, turning to see Karkat shyly dancing with him. He looked lost, confused, and joyful.

“Hey guys watch this,” Dave said, letting go of Jade’s hands. “When I run at you, lift me Jade.”

“Aw hell yeah!” Jade said, holding out her arms. She looked more like a footballer than Patrick Swayze, but it wasn’t like Dave looked anything like Jennifer Grey either.

He took a runner at her, delighting in Karkat shouting, “You’re gonna hurt yourselves idiots!” He leapt into the air and hovered just above her hands.

“Wow Dave you’re so heavy,” Jade said, pretending to hold him up. Dave rested his hands in his chin, crossing his legs as he rotated to face Karkat and Jake. Jade pretended to puff with exhaustion. “Oh no Dave I’m about to drop you. Here it comes.” She put her arms down and Dave floated to the floor. Karkat shot them an unimpressed look and headed back to his glass of wine. The moment he put it down Dave was behind him, there to take his hand, and pulled him into a dance.

“Maybe this world’s suffering from a shortage of dancers,” Karkat said, his face protesting the dance, but his body swaying in time with Dave’s. “And performing this noble art will make me into a hero.”

Dave’s mind fought for sarcastic replies. Dumb answers. Some desperate need to make this dance platonic. To make it mean nothing. To make it into a joke. He didn’t want to do that. He thought of something much better he wanted to say. “You’re already my hero.”

He could read it on Karkat’s face. The same need to make a joke, to push away sincerity. The rejection of romance. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was alcohol, or maybe it was the fact they had just come too damn far, but instead Karkat simply laid his head on Dave’s shoulder, careful not to poke him with his horns.

“I don’t get why that’s not enough. Living here, in this world with you, and all my friends. Loving them and… caring about you. Making my friends happy and taking care of them, just making sure none of us go back to how we used to be. It isn’t enough for the universe, but I wish it was because it’s enough for me. It’s what feels most important. Sharing this, just happiness, just existing and being happy and helping others do the same, that’s enough for me.”

They both shared a held hand, pressed between their chests. Dave could feel the beat of Karkat’s heart. His face was so close, and when they locked eyes, he was all the more closer. This was closer than they had ever been. Their heads tilted towards each other, hesitant, slow, and then there was no more distance. They shared a kiss, certain, finally ignoring all other voices which told them to stop, to overthink. It was just them.

Both of them could feel the respective ghosts of their tormenters banging at the doors of their minds. Trying to break through, to make them recoil from this moment of happiness, but Dave kept the door shut, and Karkat kept his shut too. And for a long, peaceful moment, with a shared kiss, there was a glimmer of hope in their future. It was not time yet, but soon, they might be somewhere close to a place resembling inner peace.


	4. Boiling Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things freeze before they sizzle.

They had been back at their hive for only a week and Dave had fallen back into his old routine. Waking, eating and sleeping at any time of the day. He had wanted to talk about the dancing, about the kiss, but he also really didn’t want to talk about it at all. And apparently neither did Karkat. But Dave sorta wanted to talk about it. They would talk about it at some point, right? Maybe? Maybe not.

Actually, it had been a several days since Dave had even _seen_ Karkat. He grabbed himself a box of apple juice, and his intuition told him to also grab a troll snack bar as he passed through the kitchen. He knocked once on Karkat’s door and shouted “I’m coming in.”

“No! Don’t come in I haven’t had time to-” but it was a futile protest as Dave had already burst through the door Kool-Aid man style, “-clean up.”

“What the fuck?!” Dave shouted. His face scrunched in revulsion at the sight of Karkat huddled in a blanket pile on the floor, surrounded by what looked like small grey flecks. It was as though he were a monochrome tree shredding during Autumn. As Dave got closer he could see the grey flecks stuck in Karkat’s hair, and he soon noticed the patchiness of Karkat’s skin. Peeling away was the grey, revealing pure black skin underneath. “What’s going on?”

“I’m moulting,” Karkat said with utter bitterness. He sank further into his blanket pile in shame. “It’s gross and it sucks.”

“Is this why you’ve been locked in your room?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Is… is it… normal?”

“Yes, it’s the last phase of my physical puberty,” Karkat said glumly. “I thought you already knew this. Wrigglers moult their shell into young trolls, and then when a troll is old enough and their eyes have filled out they moult into their final skin. Except this time is more like how humans do it, in tiny little skin flakes over the course of a long period of time, rather than the whole shell at once.”

“Weird,” Dave said.

“I just said this is like how humans moult, so how does that make it weird? You leave your skin all over the place.”

“Gross dude.”

“It’s true!”

“Yeah, I know, we’re both gross ass biological mistakes,” Dave said. He read the misery, frustration, and very easy to recognise tiredness in Karkat’s face. “Does it hurt?”

“No, it just itches like crazy. Remember that time we were visiting the human kingdom for Jade’s birthday and she made us go on that ridiculously long hike and your skin turned really red and then a few days later you were just peeling all over the place because humans are by far the grossest creatures with skin who reside on this planet?”

“Yeah I do remember thanks a lot for reminding me.”

“You looked really stupid, but whatever its kind of like that except my skin is actually really thick so it’s not like that at all really.”

“So, it’s kind of like pulling off a scab?”

“Yeah sure except less terrifying.”

“I’m so glad we’re both on the same page in regards to what scabs are. For a moment I was worried our cultural connections would all have to be based on totally gross things,” Dave said. Karkat let out a slow sigh. “Uh I brought you a snack bar if you’re hungry?”

“No.”

“Well um, you wanna take a shower and then we can watch the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Movie together?” Dave asked.

“That movie is fucking terrible,” Karkat said.

“Yeah that’s the whole point.”

“Yes, I know it’s the point, and it’s still terrible. Let’s just watch Titanic, cause I wish I was drowning right about now.”

“It takes like 3 hours to build up to the drowning scene though, let’s just expedite the process and watch Jaws.”

“Is Jaws romantic?” Karkat asked.

“Uh… yeah totally! It’s about a shark’s teeth falling in love with eating a boat,” Dave said.

“This doesn’t sound like a very good comfort movie,” Karkat said.

“It’s totally comforting don’t worry,” Dave said.

“Yeah you know what I think of when I hear the word Jaws? Hey that sounds a lot like ‘Aw’ and totally not, oh shit teeth are bad and I’m about to be eaten. Why oh why cruel god was I born at the bottom of the food chain, a tiny delicious morsel made for the jaws of carnivores?”

“Yeah see that’s the spirit,” Dave said, holding out his hand for Karkat to hoist himself up with. “How’s this for a compromise, you take that shower and I’ll get Titanic ready?”

Karkat let out a groan. “Ughhhh okay fine.” His arm poked out from the blankets and he took Dave’s hand.

 

 

“Hello here I am, checking in for my regularly scheduled snark fest,” Dave said, turning his laptop to make sure his face on in shot for the camera feed.

“I only get snarky because you get sarcastic. In due time we will reach a bond more open to accepting the transpiration of a serious conversation,” Rose said from the other end of the line.

“Damn Rose I think some our conversations have been pretty fucking serious already.”

“Well then Dave why don’t you tell me if we are finally ready to talk about… your feelings.”

“Why the hell not,” Dave said. “What feelings are we gonna unpack today? My general existential dread? How my unfounded fear of mortality is somehow tied into my childhood trauma? How all of that somehow relates to crow symbology? Come on Rose let’s stop beating around the emotionally damaged bush. Rip that shit off like my bro used to rip Hello Kitty Band-Aids off of the fresh cuts he made in my skin.”

“The emotion I am most interested in right now Dave, is romance.”

“Romance isn’t an emotion dumbass,” Dave said.

“Sure it is. When do you feel romantic? In desperate need to display romantic qualities, and when is romance imposed on you? When did you last swoon Dave?”

“Oh hell nah can we talk about literally anything else?”

“Do you love Karkat?” she asked.

“Wow things must really be bland at home if this is how far you will go to extract entertainment from me.”

“And this is why things always turn snarky,” Rose said.

 

 

“Long time no see,” Dave said as John opened his front door. Although a frequenter to their group chats John had been quite elusive to meet in-person. He looked exactly how Dave would expect, the John Egbert from their childhood except more well-built and covered in more body hair. He pulled Dave into a hug, it was tight and lasted a very long time. Dave wondered why he was so privileged to have so many friends who were such enthusiastic, bone crushing huggers. “I missed you John.”

“Yeah I missed you too,” John said, finally stepping aside so Dave could come in. “You didn’t bring Karkat?”

“Oh no he’s going through a troll thing,” Dave said, being as vague as possible. “How’s the uh, salamanders going?”

“Pretty good. All they really do is run around blowing bubbles and putting on hats,” John said.

“You know, Rose was telling me about these crazy cat lady videos she used to watch, and psychologists would say it’s because humans require a higher level of communication and emotional commitment whereas cats just love you no matter what and you don’t have to put effort in. Are you, perhaps turning into a crazy salamander dude, John?”

“Maybe a little. But I think those cat ladies really, really like cats whereas I’m starting to get a bit pissed off at salamanders. They keep raiding my cupboards and stealing my DVDs.”

“You still have DVDs? It’s all about streaming services these days, get with the times,” Dave said, learning against the wall of John’s foyer.

“So what, I’m a nostalgic.”

“No shit, I think living in your childhood home kind of gives that away.”

“We can’t all live in cool troll hives Dave,” John said. “Besides all the films on the streaming services are Jake’s movies.”

“But they’re the recreations,” Dave said. “A real nostalgic would only watch old shit. You really are a roundabout dude.”

“Sorry but being cool or being angry isn’t my thing, my thing is having strong opinions on movies. And those strong opinions are, recreations just ruin the original, and if my biological Dad is staring as the male lead, I don’t like the movie.”

“Why not? He’s actually a surprisingly decent actor.”

“I don’t want to watch him kiss a bunch of women and show off his butt.”

Dave shrugged. “It’s a pretty good butt.”

John grabbed Dave by the shirt and half-heartedly shook him. “Don’t you ever come into _my house_ and say that in front of my precious ears Dave!”

“Homophobe,” Dave said.

“When it’s my father we’re talking about, I’m going to shame your taste in men entirely.”

“Jake’s ass said Gay Rights,” Dave said.

John picked up the nearest plush salamander in his house, of which he owned many, and threw it at Dave’s head. “Shut up Dave!”

“Fine, fine okay! Gosh.”

 

 

The credits to the Ghost Buster’s remake rolled, and John said “That movie was awful.”

“Jake wasn’t even in that one, it must be terrible,” Dave said, watching a pile of salamanders sleeping on the floor. He couldn’t imagine them helping in Karkat’s quest for heroism in any way. They were just so… air headed. They weren’t in peril. They weren’t in need of a knight to come and protect them, or help them cross the street or anything they were just… salamanders.

“You know I was serious about that crazy cat lady thing,” Dave said. “I think you should visit everyone else, come hang out at our place for a week or something. Can confirm that getting out and seeing everyone really does wonders for the mind, body and soul.”

“I think being locked up with Karkat and being locked up with these little guys has different effects on your mind,” John said.

“Eh being locked up with Karkat isn’t as bad as it seems.” John was silent for a moment, and Dave could practically see the cogs turning in his head. “Just fucking ask it,” Dave said, wondering when they had slipped apart, no longer the best friends who would tell each other anything, or ask anything with just as much ease.

“Do you… really find Jake attractive?” John asked.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Dave asked.

“Uh no. Not really.”

“He’s very attractive.”

“Did you, uh, ever find me attractive?” John asked.

“No,” Dave said. “And let me say, it really threw me for a fucking loop that one. Almost every story of growing up gay you see in the movies has some joke about secretly having a crush on your best friend. And like when Rose would make fun of me for loving you I could make fun right back because it actually was a joke. Well you know, I do care about you and love you but not in a gay way.”

“But are you?”

“I don’t know. I guess so? I just… Not liking my best friend was one thing but finally finding the right person… things kind of fell into place. But other things then made less sense. Like how I felt about Jade and Terezi, that was real. But Karkat… that’s a different kind of real.”

“Do you love him?”

Dave was hesitant. He didn’t know the answer, was his first idea for response, but it wasn’t true. He did know the answer. “Yes. I think so. I mean it’s hard to define. But when I look at him it’s like every Carly Rae Jepsen song finally makes sense? In fact, all songs about love make sense. Like even the ones where it doesn’t work out, because I can finally understand what the big deal is now. _He’_ _s_ the big deal.”

“Have you two kissed?”

“A few times.”

“And?”

“And we both panic and freak out and… okay that’s not true. _I_ panic and freak out. Like I still expect Bro to sneak up and be like, _Surprise fucker thought I’d let you have one moment of weakness and happiness did you?_ and like yeah talking to Dirk and hearing about his boy issues helps like break that façade of a homophobic Bro but it’s not… I’m also trying to separate Dirk from Bro all the time so it kind of grinds into this dumb contraction of therapy nonsense. And I can’t talk to Karkat about it because he just doesn’t understand at all why it’s an issue. Like Bro is gone and the social stigma from Earth is gone but it still… he doesn’t get it.”

“Well uh. I obviously don’t get it either or know what it’s like to go through any of that. But you two seem really happy together, like even when you’re both annoyed you’re still happy. It’s good you found someone who puts up with your cool kid bullshit and makes fun of you but in a way you seem to like and actually listen to.”

“Uh thanks, I guess,” Dave said, feeling extremely awkward. He felt like he was glued to this couch, cursed to watch the credits of Ghost Busters scroll across the screen for the rest of his life.

“And I hope you are successful in making him God Tier,” John said. “I need a place to hang out when I’m two thousand years old and all these salamanders are about to start eating me alive. That’s what happens to all those cat ladies yeah?”

“Something like that.”

 

 

Karkat woke up to a cascade of messages lighting up his phone.

JADE: I thought of something heroic you can do!

JADE: a company just past the north coast of the troll kingdom had an oil spill and local wildlife researchers need help cleaning up the place

JADE: What do you say? What could be more heroic than helping a bunch of cute birdies?!!!!

KARKAT: I DON’T KNOW MAYBE SAVING A HUMAN OR TROLL LIFE?

JADE: Saving the lives of animals is just as heroic!!!!

KARKAT: WELL IF YOU LOOK AT THE LIST OF PREVIOUS ACTIVITIES WE’VE DONE THEY’VE BASICALLY ALL INVOLVED ANIMALS

JADE: so you’ll give it a try then?

KARKAT: … YOU KNOW WHAT

KARKAT: WHY THE FUCK NOT!

 

 

“This is not ‘Just past the north coast!’ this is the middle of fucking frozen nowhere!” Karkat shouted, stepping out of the shuttle bus. Behind him Dave was carrying armfuls of cleaning supplies, trying not to trip over. Growing up in Houston he was unaccustomed to dressing for cold weather and having _so many_ layers of clothes on was just weird. He couldn’t move his limbs as freely as he would like to, and his couldn’t wiggle his fingers inside the gloves. His chest was too hot and his face was too cold.

“Everything about this sucks,” Dave agreed. “Which means it’s gotta be hella heroic.”

 

“If I have to scrub one more fucking peg-wing I’m going to explode!” Karkat shouted, as another penguin waddled away, free from oil in its feathers.

“It’s pronounced pen-gwin.”

“Peng-wing.”

“Pen-gwin.”

“Peggiwin?”

“You know what, close enough,” Dave said with a soft laugh. “Whatever, we can take a hot cocoa break, or hot bug juice break or something.”

“I don’t want to take a drink break I want to stop this bullshit!” Karkat shouted.

“Dude, don’t give up yet. Look at the happiness on these beaks, I think we’re making a real change here.”

“I’m fucking freezing!”

“Yeah but that’s what makes it so heroic.”

“I don’t give a shit! I’m pretty sure finding the whole experience miserable, not wanting to be here, doing this, means that none of this is a heroic act on my part. I’ve only done any of this shit because my annoying as fuck roommate has been begging at my feet any chance we get to do anything, for the exclusive purpose of trying to achieve super powers. Which, newsflash asshole, isn’t fucking heroic!”

“Damn alright dude, we can take a break. But I really think we’re on the right track with-”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE DAVE CAN’T YOU SEE IT’S TIME TO GIVE IT UP! AND I DON’T MEAN SCRUBBING THE PEG- THE BIRDS! I MEAN THE WHOLE THING! It’s just not going to work! It’s never going to work!”

“Of course it’ll work we just gotta regroup and draw up more plans. Things more suited to who you are as a hero.”

“Plans? PLANS?! I’m so fucking sick of plans!” Karkat said throwing his penguin brush down on the ice. “It’s time to face the cold hard shitty facts, Dave, I’m never going to accomplish a heroic act because I’m not a fucking hero! I’m was the weakest troll on Alternia, who was probably only in SGRUB due to some cosmic fuck up. Or maybe I was chosen specifically because I’m weak and shitty and having twelve competent ambitious fucks would’ve been one too many. But whatever, who gives a shit about the game anymore? It’s over. I survived my childhood and I survived the game which is more than I could’ve ever hoped for. Because I’m not a fighter. I’m not a hero and I’m not special!”

Dave’s face remained stoic. He stood so still he was almost a statue and for a moment Karkat wondered if he had frozen to death in this tundra hellscape. And then Karkat spotted a small glint, a wet trickle from behind Dave’s shades. The clear colour of human tears was something Karkat had once been jealous of, how much it seemed to be able to hide their weakness. Now he cursed their subtlety, loathe to think there had been other tears of Dave’s that he had ever missed. “You _are_ special.”

“It’s never going to happen Dave,” Karkat said, trying to be gentler, but still worked up from his rant. “I’m never going to ascend, why won’t you accept that?”

“Don’t say that, fuck, fucking hell, FUCK!” Dave turned his back to Karkat and took his glasses off to wipe the tears from his face.

Karkat knew he should lay off, but he also knew making Dave open up was rare, impossible almost, and a cruel and greedy part of him said it was better to push Dave to breaking point, because an explosion of anger could give him answers to questions Dave would otherwise never speak. An explanation as to what this has been about all along.

“Why are you so hellbent on making me ascend? Having me live forever is no one’s ideal eternity. It would be better if I died, eventually, one less asshole for the universe to keep track of.”

“SHUT UP!” Dave said, facing him again. His shades were still removed, and Karkat finally realised that human tears were not easy to hide at all. The whites of Dave’s eyes had turned bright red due to some aspect of human biology Karkat presumed was unique to crying. “I thought… I… I had hoped your self-loathing days were done for. I thought us, your friends, beating the game, just… I thought we’d done good by you. Given you a good life. A life you’d want to… stay in. Like… sure your lifespan is long enough to like, do all the things you’re biologically designed to do like grow up and be an adult and grow old and whatever but… as the time guy believe me it’s not long enough. You need immortality too.”

“It _is_ a good life!” Karkat said. “I just don’t see why you think Earth C needs me to be here forever. It got by its first three-thousand years just fine without me and it’ll last three-thousand more. In fact, I think everyone and everything will be better off without me.”

“I won’t be.”

“Ha! All you do all day is infatuate over getting me to God Tier,” Karkat said. “Maybe when I’m gone you’ll be free to get a real life, do something productive with your time. Something that matters.”

“Nothing matters more than this!” Dave said, his mouth agape.

“Anything matters more than this.”

“Nothing! NOTHING!” Dave shouted. A moment of silence fell, Dave’s word ringing out, echoing through the ice walls surrounding them.

“Drop it Dave. We gave it a good go and it’s a lost fucking cause.”

“I can’t drop it!”

“Why not?!”

“Because you can’t die, not ever!”

“WHY NOT?!”

“Because…” Dave buried his face in his hands trying to supress more tears.

“WHY DOES THIS MATTER SO MUCH TO YOU?!”

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”

Time seemed to freeze, or maybe it literally did, the boundaries of Dave’s powers were truly unknown. Karkat felt like he had been shot, he felt a pang in his chest, something heavy like a bullet, pushing deeper, harshly, inwards, a pain more real than anything his nightmares could conjure up.

Dave desperately huffed air into his lungs, and in this timeless place, he continued to speak in a void of otherwise silence. “You know what… I’ll admit it, I was being selfish. You and everyone else might be okay with the idea of you someday not being here, but not me. I can’t even fucking _stand_ to think about it. So yeah, Dave Strider, the cool guy, whose life is perfect, who doesn’t need anything, doesn’t want anything, who just goes with the flow, and is always doing just fine… well it turns out maybe there _was_ one thing that mattered to him. Something he wanted. Something he… something I needed. I need you. So yeah, I guess this whole thing wasn’t really about you it was about me. I wanted, just once in my life, to be greedy. I wanted to keep the one thing that has given me real happiness, real safety, a real home, and I wanted to keep it forever.”

“Dave… I…”

“But you were right, this whole ordeal has been making you miserable. And… loving you… means I would never do something to hurt you. So let’s drop it. The whole thing. And I’ll focus on the fact that you’re here, now. You know, stop and smell the roses. Like the flowers not my sister that would be weird.”

“Dave…”

“It’s enough. You’re enough. You’ve always been more than enough. And how much time we have together, it won’t be enough but it will be more than enough.” Dave reached into his pocket and pulled out his most recent version of the heroic acts list, tearing it up and letting its shreds scatter over the ice. “Let’s call it in and go watch a movie.”

“No. Fuck no! Fuck that! Fuck you! I love you!” Karkat bent down and picked up a penguin. “I want to fucking live forever!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol sorry for the long break updating i fell into Good Omens hell and wrote an entire fic for that in the span of a week


	5. Knight of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> u go u funky little troll!

“So now you just let it simmer for 20 minutes,” Jane said from the other end of the phone. Karkat looked at the pot on the stove, holding the phone to his ear with one hand and putting down his wooden spoon with the other. There was silence. “Should I um, maybe call you back in twenty?” she asked.

“No! What if something goes wrong with the soup!” Karkat said with a growing panic.

“Then call me back, I’ll pick up, it’s not like I’m doing anything.”

“There might not be enough time!”

“Okay then…” There was a long silence.

“So… how’s uh… how’s the cookbook coming along?” Karkat asked.

“Which one?” she asked. “I always have about seven in the works. But there’s a new baking line I’m working on so I’m mostly focusing on coming up with recipes to match those cake tins.”

“Wow, that’s really fascinating,” Karkat lied.

“Um so why the sudden interest in making soup?” Jane asked.

“Dave got sick from the climate of our previous scheme. Apparently, soup is a remedy to having a cold?”

“Ah, that it is,” Jane said. “That’s very nice of you Karkat.”

“Heroic, one might say,” Karkat said dryly.

“You never know,” Jane said. “Kind acts for those you care about, thoughtless effort, that’s kind of what you should be aiming for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah probably.”

“Did you give any more thought into what some of your personal strengths are?”

“Not really,” Karkat said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be learning how to cook.”

“I really think the secret to cracking this case wide open is to stop resisting your natural strengths. Just do things you are already competent at. What’s something you’re really confident in?”

“All I’m good at is watching movies for 30 hours nonstop and then getting so hungry I consider eating the plaster of my hive’s wall.”

“You undermine yourself too much. It’s what I did too. I always ignored it when my friends called me talented, but self-confidence is about learning to agree with compliments you receive.”

“Everyone kept calling me the leader of our SGRUB group,” Karkat said. It felt like a lifetime ago. “I guess I was pretty good at being a moirail.”

“From what I’ve heard you’re a good negotiator. And a natural leader. Why not try something revolving around leadership? Something about, I don’t know, confidence boosting for others? Something… motivational?”

 

And that was how, one week later, Karkat came to find himself standing in front of a podium at a local troll high school. More and more youths flooded into the halls, and catching sight of him, his freakishly bright red eyes, his rounded horns, his stunted height for an adult, they began to whisper. Maybe this world wasn’t so perfect after all. Maybe it was just natural order in any universe to notice when things and people were out of place, and to gossip about it for entertainment.

Eventually everyone was seated and the hall fell silent. Karkat looked at his written notes. The students stared at him, waiting. Karkat cleared his throat. The teachers stared at him waiting. “Uh, um.”

Someone began to whisper.

“I uh… I never went to a high school,” Karkat began. “So honestly, I don’t know what kind of lesson any of you would find important, or relevant to your lives or studies. As you all know I made the universe you all live in. And the place I come from was much worse than this. It was violent. It was…” Somewhere dark in his memory Karkat could hear the machines whirring, the sound of drones. He felt his airways shut in panic, fear. He closed his eyes and counted down; five, four, three, two, one. Breathe. “It was torment for me. And anyone like me. Different trolls. Some say we’re a naturally violent species. That civilisation is just a front for our lethality. But… what matters is that we chose not to be violent. We chose to act instead of to hurt. We chose to listen. We chose to be honest about our feelings, rather than engage in violent subterfuge. Compassion makes you a hero.”

 

 

“Yo Rose what up are you ready to hear some seriously Fucked Up Shit?” Dave said the moment their video feed connected.

“Go ahead,” Rose said taking a sip from a large glass of wine.

“So like, I know Dirk hates talking about his sexuality but like, finding out about him being gay really turned my outlook on my life around. Like sure there’s the whole fear of the ghost of my brother appearing whenever I do anything slightly homoerotic and like scolding me or whatever but that’s another issue for later. But Dirk was telling me about fantasies he had as a kid about having a bro and you so see when I was a kid I did this thing where I would imagine what it would be like to have a real family. Like especially having a mom, you know someone in my life who was warm and caring and inviting. And she was kind of formed from what you’d said about you Mom and like TV moms but then every mom needs a dad so I’d try to picture a dad and complete the nuclear family fantasy. And this faceless fantasy dad loved the mom of course he did but then I’d like mentally strike myself with a taser because this whole fantasy was utterly ridiculous. None of this would ever happen, so why think about it? And I was pretending everything was good and cool with my bro so I’d just say to myself wow what a tool I would be growing up in that family, thank fuck I have this life instead.”

“Okay…”

“But then hearing about Dirk being gay, like I went back to the fantasy and gave it some revisions. So now it’s like this sweet caring mom raised me. And my dad is her ex husband, and they split up because he’s gay but he still really, really cares about her, like he still _loves_ her. And it’s a broken family but it’s broken in a way where there’s still so much happiness there and… love. And it being broken makes it realistic. Like it being broken and realistically so somehow makes it more desirable. Like because it’s not just sprinkles and rainbows I’m now allowed to fantasise about it. Does any of this make sense?”

There was silence on Rose’s end, and for a moment a wave of dread washed over Dave, afraid that the sound had cut out. The prospect of repeating his information dump terrified him. But then he heard a slight sob come from Rose.

She reached out of frame, replacing her wine glass with a tissue to dab at her eyes. “Dave I… I would like to formally apologise. For all the times I complained about my Mom over frankly menial things.”

“Hey no, come on, an alcohol addiction isn’t menial. And all those mental gymnastics games you played with her was obviously because you were unaware of how to directly confront her about her issues. Like struggling to make your Mom act like a Mom should is a valid thing to be upset and frustrated about. John complaining about his Dad on the other hand, complete fucking tedium.”

She laughed for a moment through her tears. “Well, what I meant was that I understand now how hearing us complain about the more trivial things would have hindered your ability to compare and identify problems with your homelife. So, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything you went through.”

“See this is a clear breach of the separation of a therapist’s personal life and her interactions with her subject.”

“Oh will you stop with the sarcasm for one fucking minute Dave! I love you! I love you so much Dave!”

“Hey, yeah. I love you too, Rose.”

 

 

“Dave! Do you have any of that soporific which makes the world less anxiety-inducing and makes you happy, and if you’re extra special lucky, obliterates your memories?” Karkat said as he came through the door to their hive.

“What’s up?” Dave asked poking his head from out of his bedroom.

“My speech was garbled nonsense and I think I just made a bunch of teenagers really confused for half an hour,” Karkat said walking across the house into Dave’s room. Dave’s computer was on, and for the first time since it had been in here it looked like Dave was actually using it to make music, as a faint beat could be heard from the headphones resting on the table. Karkat decided to collapse onto the bed, face first. “Guess what the first question they asked me was.”

“Uh, how come we’re all really lame if a dude as cool as you is responsible for making us all exist and shit?” Dave asked.

“How come your horns are so small and round?” Karkat said. “I just… at what point did I think giving a _speech_ and boring a bunch of teenagers would constitute a heroic act? You know what, don’t answer that just let me forget everything about it. What’s the music you’re making?”

“Oh,” Dave’s face lit up as he raced to his speaker and unplugged the headphones. Soon a melody filled the room, a mixture of electronic backbeat and occasional sound bites. “I took a bunch of random sound samples throughout our crazy journey over the different kingdoms and they’ve kind of been inspiring me to make new songs.”

“It’s good,” Karkat said. “I like music like this. It has no words but somehow it still tells a story.”

“Yeah well… at least something productive came out of all that scurrying around,” Dave said sitting down beside Karkat on the bed. He reached out and scratched Karkat’s hair.

“I like to complain,” Karkat began.

“Really?! Never noticed,” Dave said.

“It was good seeing everyone again,” Karkat said. “And actually seeing everything, all the kingdoms and what the civilisations have become; when we started out, I thought this whole thing would make me feel like a useless talentless sack of shit but knowing I helped make all of that come into existence, it’s really special,” Karkat sat up and turned to face Dave. “It’s been really fun.”

“I’m glad you didn’t get sick of my shit.”

“Oh I definitely got sick of your shit on multiple, if not daily occasions,” Karkat said. “But when you’re gone I miss you far more than you annoy me, by a longshot.”

Dave leant down and gave Karkat a kiss. This time with sobriety, his heart was pounding. Karkat drew him in further, and Dave almost fell down on top of Karkat, pursing the kiss.

 

 

Rose lifted a glass of wine to her lips and drank for a long, long minute. “Okay Dave are we ready to begin?”

“Uh yeah no, we’re going to talk about you. You’ve been drinking again,” Dave said.

“Here and there.”

“Like to the extent that Roxy, who lives on the other side of the goddamn planet, is getting concerned.”

“When the wife is away a girl’s got to make her own fun.”

“Yeah except when it comes to you and drinking, there is no fun involved,” Dave said.

“Last I heard on the grape wine is that you and Karkat were quite productive when under the influence of a few drinks or three,” she said, giving an obnoxious wink.

“Yeah the saying is great vine… or grape vine? I don’t know but I’m sure ‘wine’ isn’t part of it. But seriously just, talk things out with your wife.”

“I’ve tried Dave,” she said, reclining further back into her couch. “She’s just so… busy and preoccupied with being a mother. The work matters too much to her to pull her away from it. I’ve tried to help her, but I don’t understand grubs, I just don’t get them. There haven’t been any Jade bloods yet and she won’t allow anyone to become an apprentice and, well, with all that shit going on… a girl’s just gotta make her own fun,” she said again, with a shrug. She pulled a wine bottle from out of frame and began refilling her glass. “So, Strider tell me what the hot gossip is with your brain today.”

“Oh my god, that’s what this has been about all along, isn’t it? You’ve been using these sessions for entertainment. Well it’s time to stop your bored housewife shit, and like, get a new hobby. Hell, me and Karkat have been indulging in about seven-hundred new hobbies in the past month or so, we could recommend a few. Do you like penguins?”

“Maybe your boyfriend’s heroic act can be saving me from this tower I’m locking myself up in,” Rose said, placing her hand on her forehead. “Oh handsome troll man, come whisk me away from this deadly glass of rosé.” Dave’s head fell into his hands. “Okay but in all seriousness Dave, these therapy sessions haven’t entirely been out of boredom. I seriously do want to help you. I really do care. And even if they have turned more and more into sibling gossip, I think they’ve been really beneficial for the both of us. So… thank you.”

“Yeah no problem,” Dave said a little dryly. “So uh, I guess I’ll come visit you soon, help keep you off the sauce? Maybe introduce you to jazzercize or something to help keep you occupied.”

“I look forward to it.”

Dave shut down the laptop and looked blankly at the wall ahead of him, letting out a slow sigh. Unbeknownst to him, Karkat stood in the kitchen to their hive remaining completely silent. He wondered if he should tell Dave that he had just heard everything, but something in the back of his mind told him to hold his tongue, to remain hidden. He had an inclination he didn’t understand, but it felt natural, necessary. Less like a plan, it was more along the lines of… an instinct.

 

 

One year later, Karkat was baking a cake in his kitchen. Over the past 12 months they had all but ceased any active plans regarding Karkat’s divinity. They had both agreed they may as well put a break on ‘all that scurrying around’ and instead took interest in simply venturing the world to fully experience the planet they had built together. Adventure just for the sake of it.

In fact, the first _plan_ Karkat had formulated in a long time had come last week. He had been looking through his phone’s photo collection reminiscing on all the places he and Dave had visited in their shared past. Dave’s new album played in his headphones as he scrolled. The more times he listened to the album the more he picked up on and recognised where each of the sound bites originated from. There was the scuttle of wrigglers echoing in caves, the ambient noise of traffic in the human kingdom, the clacking noise of carapacians shaking hands.

Karkat had climbed out of the bed, and Dave had remained asleep on the other side of it. Dave rested easier these days, no longer as quick to jump into high alert mode as he used to be. Karkat crept to Dave’s computer, typed in the password and dug up the old MS Paint document containing their list of divine plans. He shouldn’t’ve been as surprised as he was to realise how absurd these ideas were upon reflection. They had tried almost all of them, and crossed out any of the potentially dangerous ones.

His new plan was actually one of Dave’s oldest ones. A party. A plan to gather everyone they knew together to make a better list. They’d made an effort to stay in contact but it was really time to get the gang back together again. The whole gang.

It was a few minutes after typing up invitations that Dave woke up. At first, he thought it was the glow of his computer monitor which had disturbed him, but he soon realised the light was far too bright to be that…

 

Once the cake was done Dace insisted on helping Karkat decorate it. Jane was the first person to arrive, and she gave strong praise over how tolerably edible the cake looked. A little while later Calliope and Roxy arrived. After them John, Jade and Jake arrived together, trailed by their legion of dogs which now numbered eleven in total. At the sight of Karkat, the Saint Bernard bounded over to him, barrelling the troll over and claiming him as her sitting cushion.

Rose and Kanaya arrived looking tired but in much higher spirits than they previously had. This was a result of some partially unsavoury intervention on Karkat’s behalf. After a rather lengthy screaming match with Kanaya, where he insisted she hire helpers, and she pleaded that her job was too important for any common troll to do, he had pulled off a heist of sorts. Something involving sneaking a few dozen volunteer trolls into the brooding caverns and teaching them the basics of wriggler sitting. Just enough to pass as competent in the eyes of Kanaya. It was a temporary measure until there were enough Jade bloods to take their place, was the terms which Kanaya had eventually agreed upon.

It was three hours into catch up snacks and gossip when Dirk arrived. Karkat did not miss the look of relief which crossed Dave and Roxy’s face, both of whom had been more than doubtful that Dirk would show up at all. Thankfully he also showed up alone, and not in company of a killer robot. In fact, he had brought no robots of any kind.

Soon everyone gathered around the TV where Dave’s laptop was projected onto the screen and everyone had their chance of listing off their terrible ideas.

“You could help me with the anti-virus program I’m making,” Roxy said.

“You should help me build a nursing robot,” Dirk said. “What could be more heroic than retroactively saving millions of lives?”

“Yeah you can provide examples for the robot’s bedside manner,” Rose said. Karkat snarled at her from where he was still pinned under the large dog. “Yes, exactly like that, I feel healthier already.”

“You should come skydiving with me,” Jade said.

“Oh me too!” Jake said.

“Yeah that sounds fun, count me in,” John said.

“You can already fly dude what would be the point?” Dave asked.

“But Karkat can’t fly so maybe we can show him what he’s missing out on,” Jade said. “Maybe it’ll help motivate him.”

The planning went on for a couple of hours, and soon turned into general chat, and then games and drinks and movies. The first to leave was Rose and Kanaya, accompanied by Roxy and Calliope, as Rose promised to teach them both how to knit. By the time everyone had left they had all more or less forgotten what the original purpose of the party had been.

The truth was that Karkat didn’t care, in fact this was the outcome he had hoped for. That was the plan all along, a party as an excuse to get everyone together. None of their suggestions mattered at all.

Dave and Karkat shut their front door, painfully aware of how domestic they looked standing together, and enjoyed the fact that they also sort of didn’t care.

“So, when are we going to tell them?” Dave asked.

“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” Karkat said. He closed his eyes and a moment later his clothes transformed into his Knight of Blood outfit. He didn’t think the brown suited him, nor the cape but he had grown rather fond of the wings, despite how often he accidently knocked things off of shelves with them. “Their ideas were so stupid, but so grand. How are we meant to tell them that after all the dumb running around and serious things we tried, organising a party was all it took?”

“I think it was very heroic, what you did. Not any man can pull my brother out of his brocave.”

“Dragging my friends out of their shitty lifestyles against their will for their own good doesn’t sound very heroic to me. Maybe it’s a justified act?”

“I don’t think it matters,” Dave said. Karkat was inclined to agree. He remembered something Rose had told him a little while ago about how merciless the universes they had encountered could be.

For now he was grateful that in the grand scale of the cosmos, to simply be in this world, looking after his friends, and being happy… that was all it took to be a hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s notes: For the sake of tying up loose ends, don’t worry, Dave’s wisdom teeth were fine.
> 
> The original ending i had for this was fucking wild so enjoy this rather tame simple ending
> 
> anyway if u wanna find me on tumblr im: apocahipster

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing is already written just doing some proofs and revisions by chapter


End file.
